Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine continues to deliver more surprises to Moscow as nations belonging to the Russian Federation, following past conquests, begin to push for freedom and identity.
The war, which by all intentions was aimed at expanding Russian territory based on the desires of the modern Tsar at the Kremlin, has been nurturing the seed of nationalism among citizens of republics that previously had small voices in geopolitics.
As Putin dreams of reviving the pre-1917 Tsarist Russia, he has been battling insurgents from two Republics: Ingushetia and Buryatia- formerly sleepy territories within the federation, now energised by the war in Ukraine to build opposition from within the federation and outside.
As it waged an unprovoked war against Ukraine, Moscow used citizens of the federation who are not ethnically Russian on the war frontlines with the intention of sparing their own blood. That method has gradually turned counter-productive, The Standard has learnt.
Non-Russian ethnicities within the federation, the Ingush and Buryat, after suffering loss of human life of their own, have warmed up to opposition against the Kremlin, with many supporting Ukraine against the federation that they have called home.
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“The most effective NATO forces are already inside Russia," Said Magomed Toriev, representative of the Ingush Independence Committee based in Kyiv, Ukraine “They are the hundreds of oppressed nations. They just need to be activated. It is time to start working toward achieving true peace, not just its illusion”.
Magomed was this year elected Secretary-General of Near East South Asia (NESA), an organisation uniting four nations—Ingush, Buryats, Yakuts, and Kalmyks, which have all along been identified as republics within the Russian Federation.
“Representatives of these nations have established their own independence committees, declared their independence from Russia, and aim to create normal, peaceful states after Russia’s collapse”. He said.
Magomed, who is of Ingush ethnicity, born and raised in the republic of Ingushetia within the Russian Federation, told The Standard that the Kremlin gave out a warrant for his head after listing him among the most wanted rebels in November last year (2024).
As the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year, Magomed, also a journalist, believes that it has shattered all the major myths about Russia- that the Russian army is the second most powerful in the world, that Russia will use nuclear weapons if its territory is invaded, and that Russia has a functioning Black Sea fleet.
While the Ingusetia republic falls right north of Georgia in the Russian Federation, Buryatia falls in the far east of the federation north of Mongolia. Separated by more than 6000 km, Buryatia and Ingushetia have been speaking the same language in opposition to Moscow.
“We are united by a colonial past and resistance to the Kremlin” said Marina Khankhalaeva, leader of the Tusgaar Buryad Mongolia, a movement for the Independence of Buryatia.
“We have different cultural and religious roots, but it is equally vital for us to break out of the prison of nations called Russia,” she adds.
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Buryatia has sent many young men into the war following orders from the Kremlin. Most were deployed to the frontlines, thereby suffering great losses as Russia engaged Ukraine in the early months of the war in 2022.
Marina told The Standard that by 2022, nearly the entire population of the Buryatia republic was following war progress keenly through the internet.
“The people were overwhelmed by news of the number of their kinsmen being killed in the war against Ukraine” She said and added “In Buryatia the war started to be perceived as a general policy of Russian colonial nationalism, imperialism against the people of Ukraine, from which the Buryats and other indigenous peoples of Russia were made to be the main casualties”.
This led to the Buryats being the first to create their own anti-war and national movement, the Free Buryatia Foundation, in April 2022. The movement began to run an anti-war agenda. In addition, the organisation took issue with discrimination against Buryats in Russia.
The body was created outside Russia by Buryat political emigrants who left the Russian Federation in the 2010s.
The most prominent figures of the initial stage of Free Buryatia Foundation were Victoria Maladayeva, who the Russian Independent media The Moscow Times describes as an activist from the eastern Siberian republic of Buryatia, and a most recognisable face of Russia’s Indigenous rights movement.
The paper said that in 2022, she became a leading figure in civil society’s resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine after co-founding the FBF advocacy group established to support voices from Buryatia opposed to the war.
The war, now in its fourth year, Maladayeva’s activism has expanded far beyond the borders of her Siberian homeland. She now heads Indigenous of Russia, a project aimed at fostering closer ties between Russia’s nearly 200 Indigenous peoples and minorities.
Other voices that came up to join the emerging rebellion, becoming co-founders of FBF, were investigative journalist and political researcher Alexandra Garmazhapova, and Scientist Maria Vyushkova (PhD). The Moscow Times writes of Vyushkova thus “In the three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vyushkova, who holds a Ph.D. in chemistry, has emerged as the lead expert on the involvement of Russia’s Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities in the war”.
While Indigenous activists long sounded the alarm about the disproportionate mobilisation of minorities for the war, Vyushkova was the first to back these claims up with hard data and shed light on the true scale of ethnic disparities in the confirmed Russian-side casualties.
The movement itself received widespread support within the Buryatia republic, causing the body to receive a significant amount of information from the war front, and it still has volunteers within the republic.
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In May 2022, a group of Buryat volunteers appeared – the Buryat Information Centre. The centre was based in Mongolia and received support from a coalition of Buryat organisations in Mongolia. Since February 2022, residents of Buryatia began to move to Mongolia, and began to use the country as a corridor for further travel to other countries.
From the beginning of the mobilisation for war against Ukraine in September to December 2022, more than 30,000 residents of Buryatia crossed the border to Mongolia. The movement engaged those who fled, distributing humanitarian aid and negotiating with Mongolian organisations.
The launch of FBF running political programs of the national movement was followed by the launch of a new organisation called "Tusgaar Buryaad” which translates into the independence of Buryatia. This new body is headed by US-based Marina Khankhalaeva and has quickly gained supporters and volunteers. The body represents the interests of the Buryat people and has had its leader appear before UN tribunals and meetings with the ministries of foreign affairs of various countries.
Addressing the United Nations Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples' Issues in April 2024, Khankhalaeva accused Russia of plundering the resources of many indigenous communities, including her own, the Buryats, to fund its war with neighbours such as Ukraine
"Our people will achieve independence for our lands, which were taken away by Russia. We have centuries of cruel colonisation and suppression, which is still going on today. The Russian state is guilty of many sins, war crimes and crimes against the whole of humanity. I would like to inform you about crimes against our own people...In 2022, during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia used people within the federation who were not ethnic Russian as expendable material. The majority of people who died because of this were from the Republic of Buryatia".
