Resistance to war has been deeply crushed in the depths of Russia, but it has not disappeared

• Paolo Alessandro

  publisher abroad

A young woman in light jeans and sturdy-soled boots walks with a banner under her arm to the central square of Ulan-Ude, the capital of the Siberian republic of Buryatia. She is going to a protest announced on Instagram against the war in Ukraine and the mobilization. But once she arrives, instead of the demonstrators, she sees only police officers.

Human rights activist Nadezhda Nizovkina also came to the square. He reports live all the events in his city for his YouTube channel. And when it comes to arrests, she offers legal assistance to protesters, recording everything with the camera.

According to Nizovkina, this is exactly what the resistance in Buryatia currently looks like, he tells on the phone from Ulan-Ude: “Someone goes out on the street with a banner, shortly after another joins. The police immediately intervene strongly, arrest the demonstrators and passers-by. unaware at the same time. In the villages it is even more difficult. If someone there talks about the mobilization on social networks, someone is immediately at the door to get him “.

Protest against the mobilization in the center of Ulan-Ude:

Elsewhere in Russia, too, there is hardly any visible resistance, while immediately after the announcement of the ‘partial’ mobilization – now more than a month ago – countless demonstrators took to the streets in Russia.

Protests were particularly strong in Dagestan, Yakutia and Tuva – “national republics” with a large ethnic minority. It is precisely those poor regions on the fringes of Russia that are disproportionately affected by war and mobilization. They also count by far the largest number of casualties on the battlefield. Dagestan leads the list with 310 recorded deaths. Buryatia follows with 288 deaths (reference date 7 October).

In remote Buryatia – on the border with Mongolia – even buses loaded with men were transported to the mobilization centers soon after the announcement. It has already been called “the worst night of Buryat life”.

The Buryat women are asking the authorities to bring their children home from the front

The protest that first night was minor. On social media, images of a woman with a banner said: ‘Our men, sons and fathers do not kill other men, fathers and sons’. The mobile units arrested at least four protesters, including Nizovkina who also broadcast the action live on her YouTube channel. She was detained for two nights.

But after that explosion of popular anger in the early days of the mobilization, everything in the country was scrupulously quiet. However, according to Nizovkina, the mobilization has radically changed the attitude of the population. Nizovkina: “A rapidly growing group of newcomers who had never been involved in politics before are turning against the war. Before the mobilization, you saw the letters Z and V everywhere on cars and buildings, on T-shirts, on balconies. . With those citizen symbols their support for Putin and his war. Now they have suddenly disappeared and with it the warmongers “.

For the moment, the resistance consists of a series of individual actions, says Nizovkina. For example, the retired woman who recently took to the streets in Ulan-Ude with a banner and the words “defend freedom”. Or the unknown activists who at the beginning of this month set fire to the Russian flag with the V sign on the Lenin statue in the center and telegramed images of their action.

At the same time, the resistance in Buryatia receives consensus from quite another part: from the Buryats he emigrated in particular to the USA, Kazakhstan and South Korea. They joined the Free Buryatia Foundation. Immediately following the announcement of the mobilization, the organization organized a dozen buses with donations from its members to bring men from Buryatia across the border into Mongolia. It is estimated that between 3,000 and 4,000 Buryats have fled the country since 21 September.

At the start of the war, a team of lawyers from the Free Buryatia Foundation managed to bring home a group of Buryat soldiers, says director Aleksandra Garmazjapova by telephone from Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. “They were imprisoned because they refused to fight. Since we already had internal legal expertise, we were also able to respond adequately to the new reality of mobilization.” For example, the foundation provided legal support to mobilized people who had been unjustly summoned.

Even the Buryats abroad have spoken out against the war in a penetrating YouTube video. “The Russian state media talk again and again about Putin’s ‘Buryat warriors'”. Garmazjapova says. “It has also happened repeatedly that war crimes have been wrongly attributed to Buryat soldiers, including in Butja.”

Buryats around the world speak out against war:

This creates the impression that it is not ethnic Russians who are guilty of atrocities, but the barbarians of Asia. Garmazjapova wants to fight that image.

Following the example of the Free Buryatia Foundation, other ethnic groups in exile also closely follow events in their homeland and have joined in imitating the Free Buryatia Foundation, such as Free Yakutia, New Tuva and Free Kalmykia.

In April, NOS shot a video about the numerous ethnic minorities who fell on the battlefield