By Olha Chepil | 2024-11-18

KYIV -- Faced with colossal troop losses in its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is sending outlying ethnic minorities -- namely Bashkirs, Tuvans and Buryats -- to do the fighting and dying.

Their poverty-stricken regions suffer from much higher proportionate losses than do the big cities in European Russia, analysts say.

The highest mortality rate occurs among military personnel from economically disadvantaged regions of Siberia and the Far East. The lowest is found among their comrades from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"Men are dying mainly in the outlying minority regions, where there is unemployment," said Olga Romanova, director of the Russia Behind Bars charity.

"In Russia, unemployment means Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kalmykia, Adygea, Buryatia and Tuva. It isn't the center of Russia. It isn't large cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg. So, it is mainly the ethnic republics," she told Kontur.

Two groups -- Buryats and Tuvans -- have the highest risk of being killed in the war in Ukraine, said Yelena Trifonova, a journalist from Irkutsk, Siberia, and editor-in-chief of the online magazine People of Baikal.

"For example, Moscow has the lowest mortality rates in the war, 3.1 deaths per 100,000 men. But in Buryatia and Tuva, it is 240 deaths per 100,000 men," she told Kontur, citing scholarly research.

"In other words, a man from Buryatia is approximately 75 times more likely to die in Ukraine than a Muscovite."

Duping the poor

The high mortality rate of men from these regions largely stems from their socioeconomic situation, said Trifonova. For many young men in Buryatia, Tuva or Dagestan, the army is one of scant options for a regular income.

Military contracts range, but promise monthly earnings of around 200,000 rubles (€1,894) -- about 2.4 times higher than the average salary in Russia, the Moscow Times reported at the end of July.

Plus, some regions have increased sign-on bonuses.

In Moscow, a soldier could receive 1.9 million rubles (€18,000) in addition to his monthly salary. In the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District, a new recruit receives 1.1 million rubles (€10,420) -- around 14 times higher than Russia's average salary -- after signing a military contract.

Kontur could not confirm whether the Kremlin actually pays out these relatively exorbitant amounts, but it is unlikely given Russia's increasingly fragile economy and strain on the military system, and the well documented cases of family members of fallen soldiers who never received promised payments from the government.

"You will never earn that kind of money anywhere in civilian life," Trifonova said. "If this is possible in rich, fat Moscow, it is simply a fantasy in poor Ulan-Ude. And that's why men are going to war for money."

That widespread regional poverty is a direct consequence of Kremlin policy, say analysts.

Indeed, some regions, such as the Nenets Autonomous District, are resource rich and produce oil, but the oil industry brings nothing to the indigenous population, benefiting only district leaders and Moscow.

Moreover, it destroys the environment and local residents' means of supporting themselves: reindeer husbandry and fishing.

Only 44,000 Nenets live in Russia, but they, too, are fighting in large numbers in Ukraine. Facing dire economic conditions, they are being pushed by the Kremlin to join the army.

"Basically, this turns out to be a long-established policy," said Romanova. "The Kremlin has not developed these regions in any way. Their residents have no jobs or education. And now [the Russian leadership] just sends them to war."

"Naturally, that is why the largest number of those killed are residents of the outlying minority regions."

'Trafficking in human beings'

Recruiters in major Russian cities meet their assigned goals by luring residents of poor outlying regions with the much higher wages of Moscow or St. Petersburg, Romanova added.

The recruits are employed for a few days in a major city before going to war on behalf of large corporations and cities, and thus the corporations and cities ostensibly meet their recruiting obligations.

"Thus, [the recruiters] are actually luring residents of the outlying regions to join up," said Romanova. "They arrange for men to work for one day at Mosvodokanal [Moscow's water and sewage company], in some [Moscow] housing and utility department, at Mosgaz [Moscow's gas company], and so on. It makes it sound like large corporations are supplying their own workers."

The result is "trafficking in human beings," she said.

"And then the mayor of Moscow announces that he is fulfilling the recruitment plan. St. Petersburg does the same. Other large cities do the same. They aren't handing over their own residents. And this is highly encouraged."

In this manner, the Kremlin is "wiping out" ethnic minorities and residents of poor regions, but protecting the men the large cities who work for the defense industry, said Romanova.

"Various office workers, financial sector workers, lawyers, drone manufacturers and so on. The Kremlin protects them," she said. "That is, it is in fact the 'undesirable' ones, the lower classes, who are being ground up in the war."

"And this policy reduces pressure on social programs, which means no discontent" among the spared parts of society, she said.

"We are talking about those who are entirely unwanted by the Kremlin. Who are they? The residents of the outlying regions."

'Hiding losses'

Working abroad, Trifonova and her colleagues use every source to record the number of service members from Buryatia and Irkutsk province who die in Ukraine.

Casualty notifications and zinc coffins have been arriving in Irkutsk province and Buryatia almost daily since the start of the war, she said. At present, she and her colleagues have counted more than 3,700 deaths of residents of those regions.

The work is extremely difficult, she said.

"The Kremlin absolutely wants to hide the losses," Trofinova said. "To date, official casualty numbers have not been published. They simply don't exist. They are hidden. And [in Russia], no one else really does anything like what we do. When other media outlets tried to publish obituaries, they were prosecuted."

Authorities established a Republican Headquarters for the Prevention of Threats of Separatism, Nationalism, Extremism and Mass Unrest in Buryatia this year, because the Kremlin fears protests by ethnic groups, analysts say.

Similar offices are forming in various other regions to keep their populations silent.

"The Buryat population is disgruntled that so many Buryats are dying, because there were so few of them [to start with]," said Trifonova. "The losses that the Buryats suffer are more painful for them than the losses that the Russians suffer."

The Republic of Buryatia's population was about 979,000 in 2021, out of a Russian population of more than 140 million.

The antiwar Free Buryatia Foundation helps troops from Buryatia terminate their contracts and return home from the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin's current policy is characteristic of a fascist state, said the foundation's president, Alexandra Garmazhapova.

"It is interesting how Russia invaded Ukraine under the guise of denazification, but at the same time Russia itself... divides [people] into classes, including when sending them to the front lines," she told Kontur.