The Russian state using ethnic minorities as cannon fodder - with a focus on Buryats
Article written in 2022, update on the Free Buryatia Foundation in September 2023 given at the end of the post.
Putin announced on October 14th 2022 that by the end of October, his partial mobilisation process would be complete
The recruitment target was 300,000. 222,000 were recruited, and it was claimed that there'd be no more plans for future recruitment
The mobilisation process soaked nation wide outrage which lead to mass protests.
It drew in criticism from some of the Russian political elite
The mobilisation process disproportionately affected ethnic minorities/impoverished regions (many impoverished regions have a high ethnic minority population)
Tuva Republic
Regions that held high populations of ethnic minorities bared the brunt of war-related deaths.
Both Ukrainian media and authorities have levelled accusations at Russian ethnic minorities - that they committed war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine
This accusations was made in May 2022 by Lydmyla Denisova, Ukrainian ombudsman for human rights
Buryats and Chechens were being accused of this
This was a form of scapegoating (not to say they 0 ethnic minorities have committed war crimes in Ukraine of course)
The Free Buryat Foundation investigated this and produced a report that challenged the notion that Buryats were ever sent to Bucha, let alone being responsible for the war crimes committed
Victoria Maladaeva is the vice president of the Free Buryatia Foundation.
She said:
Dagestan, Tuva Republic and Buryatia Republic have the highest death tolls
Moscow, with 17 million, had >50 deaths.
Buryatia with only 980,000 had 364
A Buryat is 7.8 x more likely to die in the war compared to an ethnic Russian.
A Tuvan is 10.4x more likely
The biggest losses were at the beginning of the war and numbers gradually decreased.
Mobilisation was first and foremost carried out in ethnic republics
The day Putin announced this, authorities came to Buryatia at night, went into people's homes and took them from their beds.
No one was given draft notices
They even took men with multiple children, men from the same family
Endangered ethnic groups reside in Dagestan
There are very small communities of those people with populations of around 13,000
Despite this, those minorities were still drafted
There are also very small communities in the Sakha Republic.
They are so remote, helicopters are needed to be called for medical treatment
They almost never come because of how remote these communities are
Funnily enough, helicopters came immediately to draft those people upon Putin's announcement
Putin is a Russian imperialist through and through
None Russians are treated like second class citizens
Russian cultural chauvinism is seen even in small things - such as names
Putin would frequently mispronounce Kazakhstan's president's name. If you have an ethnic Buryat name for example, Russians are reluctant to use it, instead assigning you an "easier" Russian name
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
Unfortunately, many of the people of Buryatia believe in the Russian narrative about Nazi ideology in Ukraine
It is one of the missions of the free Buryatia Foundation to help Buryats understand that this is Russian propaganda
The focus on Buryat/ethnic minority war crimes has a racial element
When an ethnic minority commits a war crime, their ethnicity is singled out
It should not matter the ethnicity of a war criminal
78 Buryat soldiers from the 11th air assault brigade were barred from terminating their contract
They were imprisoned in Luhansk.
Only Ilya Kaminskiy returned. The fate of the other men is unknown
The Free Buryatia Foundation knows they cannot help everyone but they do their best. They help people in terminating their contracts for example and have been quite successful in this.
The Free Buryatia Foundation was established to counter Russian propaganda and to protest the war.
People worldwide took an interest to this, so they founded the free Buryatia Foundation.
The Free Buryatia Foundation is the first ethnic anti war organisation in Russia
They aided in founding anti war organisations in other ethnic regions such as Tuva, Kalmykia, Udmurtia, Sakha
Many Buryats fled to Mongolia and Kazakhstan
Some men were able to come back after being drafted, some were not
The economic situation for Buryatia is dire. It ranked 81st out of 85 of Russia's regions when it came to living standards
Buryats had to spend money on a list of supplies for war that Russia did not provide them
Very recently, on September 1st, Russia banned the Free Buryatia Foundation, labelling them as undesirable and anti Russian.
Here is the website for the Free Buryatia Foundation:
And here is where you can donate:
Please spread around or give what you can.
147 notes
·
View notes