Russian Imperialism: How, By ‘Protecting the Russian Language,’ the Kremlin is Destroying the Languages of the Occupied Peoples

Indigenous and small-numbered peoples in Russia are dying out: 67% of them have declined in number over the last 10 years. Despite this, it is the national republics that have been hardest hit by mobilisation.

Belonging to an indigenous minority group is grounds for exercising the right to alternative civilian service, but this right does not apply to mobilisation.

In Buryatia, men were taken straight from their beds to military registration offices, classes in schools, which were turned into mobilisation points, were cancelled, and teachers were forced to deliver summonses. Men were taken en masse to war in Yakutia and Chuvashia.

In some regions, entire villages of men were mobilised. For example, in the village of Dada, where mainly Nanai people live, 40 out of 400 people were taken — practically the entire young male population. In the Murmansk region, in the village of Lovozero, the Sami were taken to war. From the village of Krasnoye in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, 37 people were mobilised, 18 of whom were representatives of indigenous small peoples. In November, in Yakutia, the military commissar demanded that 500 people be sent to war each week.

Mobilisation hit the smallest peoples the hardest. For example, there are less than 1,500 Udeghe people left in the Far East. Nevertheless, in some Udeghe villages, all young men are being mobilised.

According to sociologists, the percentage of conscripts among representatives of minority peoples is on average higher than among Russians. As a result, the risk of losing a representative in the war is up to five times higher for a small ethnic group than for a Russian one.

List of languages of Russia that have died out and disappeared since the beginning of the 20th century (ordered by date of extinction/disappearance)

Source 1

Source 2