Sergeant Artyom Dambayev fought with the 5th Tank Division near Kiev. Born in 1997, the soldier was Buryat, a predominantly Buddhist minority in Russia living on the border with Mongolia. At the end of March he was ambushed with his unit when they tried to withdraw, reads a commemorative message on Russian social media† Below the message are dozens of statements of support. He is called a hero, who posthumously earns the highest military award.
Dambayev is one of dozens of fallen Russian soldiers who can be found on a memorial page for soldiers from Buryatia. At the start of the invasion, experts expected protests in Russia to increase as more soldiers were killed. But the opposite also seems to be the case in Buryatia.
“We thought that if coffins came back, people would start asking questions,” journalist Olga Mutovina told NOS. “That people would be outraged. But we now see that everyone is silent.” Mutovina lives in Irkutsk and works for Lyudi Bajkala – an independent news site about the region† She dares to speak openly about the developments in Russia, because she already does this with her colleagues on their site.
There they also keep track of how many soldiers from the region have died – by speaking with families, collecting information from websites and visiting funerals. As far as we know that until a week ago there were about a hundred from Buryatia and twenty from Irkutsk, now the site has been blocked in Russia.
Watch this video about Buryat soldiers fighting in Ukraine, the text continues:
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