Indigenous peoples are especially affected by the partial mobilization

According to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), indigenous communities in Russia are especially affected by the partial mobilization in the country. “In several indigenous settlements in the Russian Arctic, in Siberia, and in the far east of the country, more than 20 percent of the male population have been called up for military service,” stated Dmitry Berezhkov, indigenous activist of the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia (ICIPR). He and other members of Russian indigenous communities are currently in Berlin – at the invitation of the STP – to speak with politicians and business representatives. 

While the Russian authorities are claiming that no more than one percent of the nation’s conscripts will be called up for military service, the actual number is much higher in the more remote areas,” Berezhkov said, Thus, a total number of 181 men from the village of Bogorodsk (Komi Republic) are said to have been drafted – accounting for 26 percent of the 700 inhabitants of Bogorodsk. As another example, 50 inhabitants of the village Olenek (Sakha Republic in Yakutia) have been drafted: 39 percent of the male population in the age group of 18 to 35 years.

Further, there are hardly any measures to check the men’s health status. Thus, Berezhkov criticized that – in rural settlements – people with chronic health issues were drafted as well. Due to the rough climate, it can be quite problematic for families with many children to survive if the fathers, the providers, have to go to war. Some traditional cultures might even go extinct due to the mobilization. Thus, reindeer husbandry is threatened with extinction in large parts of the northern regions. If young reindeer herders were killed in Ukraine, this would be an existential threat to their communities. Recently conscripted soldiers from the settlements of Andryushkino, Kolymskoye, Sangar, and Topolinoe in the Sakha Republic in Yakutia – which is a home to the Chukchi and Evenks – have already fallen.

Still, indigenous peoples belong to the most disadvantaged population groups in Russia. Most of them live in the economically least developed regions of the country, where they hardly have access to alternative sources of information that are not controlled by the state authorities. Also, there are more and more repressive measures against indigenous human rights organizations. “Many indigenous communities of the Russian Arctic, Siberia, and the far east of the country are very small – and some of the peoples consist of only a few hundred persons,” stated Regina Sonk, STP expert on indigenous peoples. “Thus, mobilization without any prior consultations is an existential threat to the indigenous peoples of Russia – and it is a violation of their rights enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”