"You feel in your heart" - Khamzat Chimaev empathizes with Palestine by drawing parallels from his upbringing in war-torn Chechnya

UFC middleweight Khamzat Chimaev discussed the plight of Palestinians in Gaza and drew parallels from his difficult upbringing in Chechnya.

The escalation in Gaza by the Israeli Defence Forces has led to an unprecedented number of casualties with the death toll exceeding 23,000 people with over half of them believed to be children.

Chimaev expressed his grief over the death of children and spoke about grappling with the bleak reality of the situation. He also compared it to his own experience growing up in Chechnya. In an interview with Muhammad Hijab, the undefeated UFC fighter prayed for the Palestinian populace in Gaza:

“You feel in your heart, how hard is it. So everyone knows what’s happening in Palestine now. I’m almost the same country like this, we went through the same things. So we had the war in the country as well. [If ]Somebody knows about that so we know about that. So, it’s hard. Kids dying, you know. We seeing today like in the movies, the kids dying but now it’s in real life. The kids dying you know, so it’s hard. Insha Allah [God willing] we hope, soon it’s over and Insha Allah we make dua everyday. I don’t know what to say brother. Just no words for that man.”

Khamzat Chimaev experienced much of the Second Chechen War during his childhood as Islamist fighters fought for independence from Russia. When he was 18, Chimaev emigrated to Sweden.

Check out Khamzat Chimaev's full comments below (1:10):

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Paulo Costa says his 'dream fight' is against Khamzat Chimaev for the belt

UFC middleweight Paulo Costa stated that his dream fight would be against Khamzat Chimaev for the 185 lbs title.

Chimaev only moved up to the middleweight division for good in his last fight against Kamaru Usman. He won the fight with a dominant performance. Costa said in a a recent interview on The MMA Hour that he was extremely confident of a positive result against 'Borz'.

He said:

"My dream fight is for the belt against 'Chen Chen'. I can bet everything on me. I’m so confident in that fight. This should happen... But they cannot force. You don’t know how much everybody from the UFC forced, they actually forced Khamzat to fight me in Abu Dhabi. He [turned it down] three times last year. They put him in the corner and said, ‘Okay, so you’re going to fight no one if you don’t fight Paulo.’ They made him a very good contract, like $2 million, to sign this deal. But Allah saved him. God saved him, just for now.”

Check out his comments below (41:18):