‘Until Russia’s colonial mindset changes, it will pose a threat’: Interview with Buryat activist · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Cemetery in Buryatia. Screenshot from Sky News YouTube channel.
After Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, a disproportionate number of soldiers from ethnic minorities were sent by Moscow to fight on the frontline, and the vast majority of them have died. One of those groups are the Buryats, a Mongolic nation living in southern Siberia around Lake Baikal. Despite claims by the Kremlin that it is fighting colonialism, any attempt to build an independent identity and to point the finger at long-lasting Russian and Soviet imperialism is severely crushed and censored in Putin's Russia.
Global Voices talked to Maria Vyushkova from the Free Buryatia Foundation to address the issue of enduring colonial views among many Russians, including those opposing Putin or living outside of Russia. Vyushkova is a researcher and heads the analytical branch of the foundation. She is currently based in the Bay Area in California.
Maria Vyushkova. Photo by Herve Philippe, used with permission.
MV: Unfortunately, this is still very difficult. This is not surprising: look at the difficulty, resistance and uproar that come along in the US as part of conversations around the teaching of the history of Black Americans and systemic racism. Despite the fact that, in the US, work has been carried out for several decades to overcome this difficult legacy! In Russia, the topic of domestic colonialism has never really been covered. Since Soviet times, the only correct narrative has been about the “voluntary and peaceful entry” of nations into the Russian Empire. For example, prominent opposition leader Vladimir Ryzhkov stated in a 2016 televised debate that “the Russian Empire has never oppressed a single Buryat” despite the fact that he is a historian, PhD, and professor at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. What can we say about people without a higher education?
At the same time, Russian society's awareness of the colonial nature of Russian history and its own colonial thinking is extremely important both for the future of Russia and for world security. Why? Because military aggression against Ukraine is a 100 percent product of such thinking that frames the events not as an aggressive war with a neighboring state, but as the pacification of a rebellious province. And until this mindset changes, Russia will pose a threat to both its neighbors (which it also considers as “rebellious provinces”) and the world as a whole.
It seems to me that the deep and sincere dissatisfaction with the demolition of monuments to the Russian poet Pushkin in Ukraine, which was expressed by many opponents of Putin (and opponents of the war) is just a relic of colonial thinking, where Russia is the mother country, and Ukraine, a “province,” if not in a political, then in a cultural sense. This shows that we often do not even realize how deeply rooted this way of thinking is in our minds.
FN: Buryats, but also Chechens and others are demonized by certain Ukrainians, and the Vatican, and instrumentalized by Russian propaganda as ‘natural killers’. Are those narratives changing?
MV: I am not at all surprised by the reaction of the Ukrainians, since it is more than natural to “demonize” the soldiers of the enemy army that attacked your country. Yes, we can say that they are demonized to a greater extent than Russians. Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Portnikov noted on this occasion that it is easier to hate the Other, a person of a different appearance, a different race and/or religion, than one who is outwardly indistinguishable from you.
There is indeed such a thing as racial perception of crime: the perception of the number of crimes committed by people of a different race tends to be inflated. In the US, for example, studies have shown that the white majority tends to grossly overestimate the number of crimes committed by African-Americans. Similarly, in Russia in the 2000s, there was a widespread opinion that all crimes were committed by migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus.
But for those Russians opposing Putin yet picking up the narrative that “the Buryats are to blame for everything,” I do have questions. It is clear that the roots of the Russian army's cruelty go deep into history: two wars in Chechnya, the war in Syria, the Afghan war in Afghanistan, where at least half a million Afghan civilians were killed. This cruelty is mirrored in the psychology of Russian society (and not only of its pro-Putin part), and looking into such a mirror is not very pleasant. That is why some seized on a simple solution: to declare that exotic savages like the Buryats and Chechens are to blame for everything, and the “holy Russian soldier” and Russian society itself have nothing to do with it.
As for the Vatican, it is clearly pursuing some kind of diplomatic goals of its own and avoids directly blaming the Kremlin, thinking that it is more convenient to act as a peacemaker. But who should be called responsible for war crimes? This is where the “Chechens and Buryats” successfully turned up, on whom everything can be blamed. Given the history of the Vatican's attitude towards indigenous peoples, this is not surprising.
At the same time, it is quite obvious that when a nuclear power with a million-strong army attacks a neighboring state, it is somehow strange to blame a small Siberian nation, who makes up 0.3 percent of the population of this country, for all this.
MV: In the annual ratings of Russian regions in terms of average per capita income and quality of life, Buryatia regularly falls into the bottom ten. At the same time, there is no direct and unambiguous connection between the level of income in the region and the number of soldiers who died in the war. An equally important factor is the concentration of military units per capita in the region. Both factors are present in Buryatia: low incomes and a huge number of military units with a small (less than a million) population. Therefore, the proportion of servicemen among the inhabitants of Buryatia is indeed very high.
The lack of social wellbeing is also expressed in the high level of suicides (from year to year Buryatia is among the leaders in this indicator among Russian regions) and the so-called “deaths from despair.” Due to early deaths, the average age of men in Buryatia is five years lower than the average age of women. And, of course, due to the death of a large number of men in the war, the situation will only get worse.
The need for economic survival is a harsh reality for most of Russia's population, and Buryatia is no exception. Let's not forget that the difficult economic situation now is not some kind of exceptional phenomenon, characteristic of only one particular region. And, of course, when people are busy surviving, they have no strength left for anything else, they fall into indifference and get used to considering themselves powerless to change something. Hence the low level of political, civil and protest activity. But this is also not something unique compared to other regions.
MV: If we talk about our anti-war activities, then moral considerations are at the forefront for us: we consider the war in Ukraine a criminal aggression against a neighboring country, which should be condemned, including under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. However, we understand that in order for more people to hear us, we must also talk about the economic aspect of what is happening. The reality is that for a large proportion of the inhabitants of Buryatia, issues of economic survival overshadow everything else.
Therefore, we talk about the plight of our fellow countrymen, that the Kremlin prefers to spend huge amounts of money to kill people in Ukraine, instead of helping Buryatia. We say: rather than trying to impose some kind of “Russian world” on your neighbors, isn't it better to restore order and achieve prosperity at home? And we remind people that those who unleashed this war and send young people from Buryatia there will not send their children there themselves.
Another circumstance that worries us is the massive advertisement of the Ministry of Defense in Buryatia with promises of generous payments to those who agree to sign up for contract service and go to war in Ukraine. Apparently, this is due to the plans announced in December by the Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu to recruit 400,000 contract soldiers into the army.
In this regard, we have begun explanatory work in all social networks where our foundation is represented, and we talk about why one should not believe these promises, and also about what a terrible reality lies behind: that the probability of dying or being injured in a war in Ukraine has grown many times over, that it is impossible to leave the army after the expiration of the contract, and that “generous” payments may not be so generous at all.