Key facts
- The Sheikh Mansur Volunteer Battalion said on November 14, 2026, that fighters Khamza and Rayana were killed in Ukraine.
- Rayana was the first woman to join the battalion, enlisting voluntarily in 2024.
- Rayana was wounded at the front in 2024 and returned to service, according to her Instagram page.
- Olha Konoval, who served alongside Rayana, said Ukraine had lost a "fantastic female warrior."
The Chechen Sheikh Mansur Volunteer Battalion said on November 14, 2026, that two of its fighters, Khamza and Rayana, were killed fighting Russian forces in Ukraine. The battalion announced the deaths on its Telegram channel. Rayana was a drone operator and the first woman to join the battalion, enlisting voluntarily in 2024.
Before joining the military, Rayana taught Muay Thai and raised her son as a single mother. In a 2024 interview with the United News telethon, she said: "It's harder to be at the rear, because here (at the front) I know where the enemy is and I can do something about it. I'm doing everything I can to help." According to her Instagram page, she was wounded at the front in 2024 but returned to service.
Soldier Murad Nasirov, in an Instagram post, said Rayana "was not merely a Muslim, nor merely a warrior — she was a person who made a choice and stood up to defend the land she considered her homeland." Olha Konoval, who served alongside her, remembered Rayana as a devoted Muslim who looked after a mosque in Kostiantynivka in Donetsk Oblast. Konoval wrote on Instagram: "Ukraine has lost a fantastic female warrior. We have all lost her. Every one of us."
Rayana's funeral will take place in Odesa, where her family lives. The Sheikh Mansur battalion is named after a religious and military leader who opposed Russian expansion into the Caucasus in the late 1700s. According to the General Staff, more than 76,000 women serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including 57,000 military personnel, with the remainder in civilian positions.