Aljazeeran mukaan Buryatit ja Chechenit kokevat venäjän rasistisena vähemmistökansoja kohtaan, eivätkä pinnan alla kaikki suinkaan ole innoissaan Ukrainan sodasta, saati siihen osallistumisesta.
Russia’s ethnic minorities lament the war in Ukraine
Ethnic minority troops are said to be dying in greater numbers than their Slav compatriots in the so-called ‘special military operation’.
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“Most of the soldiers and officers of the ground forces and the airborne forces come from poor Russian towns and villages,” military specialist Pavel Luzin told Al Jazeera.
“This social-economic stratification has a long-term tradition in the Russian armed forces because young men from the cities with relatively good education serve in other military branches … but the infantry consists of badly-educated soldiers from poor families and regions.”
“We can’t determine our own politics – if we had a real federation, the head of our republic could say no, Buryats won’t fight in this criminal war. But he keeps providing cannon fodder for Putin,” Victoria Maladaeva, of the Free Buryatia Foundation, told Al Jazeera.
“Our languages and history are disappearing off the face of the Earth, while Moscow sucks all the money and resources out of the provinces. Moscow is a beautiful city but it’s such a facade of all of Russia, because if you go just a little further, the houses are falling apart, there are no roads, there’s no work.”
“Contractors [soldiers] and their families are always writing to us, saying that they don’t want to fight, but there are many obstacles along the way. Some of them are being held back on occupied territories [of Ukraine], and they’re pressured, threatened, afraid they’ll be sent to the front line to be killed,” Maladaeva said.
“When they submit their refusal, they’re asked ‘Who will defend the motherland?’ They reply if someone attacks their motherland they’ll defend it, but they see no motherland in Ukraine.
“In Russia, the level of chauvinism is very high,” Chechen lawyer and human rights defender Abubakar Yangulbaev told Al Jazeera. “I even call it the ‘Racist Federation’, as it perfectly reflects the inner essence of the state both among the Russian people and among the officials.”
“Yes, there are Chechens who are loyal to Putin and Kadyrov, the Kadyrovites, but they are a minority who do not enjoy respect among the people as they are considered privileged traitors to their country,” said Yangulbaev.