What Happens to Russia’s Ethnic Minorities After the War?

As Foreign Policy was among the first to report in May 2022, non-Russian regions such as Buryatia, Dagestan, and Tuva have borne the brunt of the Kremlin’s mobilization drive. Former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj said a few months later that Russia had turned its Mongolic ethnic groups—Buryats, Tuvans, and Kalmyks—into “nothing more than cannon fodder.”

Russia is waging war not only against Ukraine but also against some of its own people. At the forefront of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meat grinder—the macabre metaphor for Russia’s treatment of its own soldiers as expendable human waves—are various ethnic minorities from the poorest parts of Russia. As military recruiters sweep through Russia’s periphery, the war has hollowed out minority communities, while privileged residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg remain relatively untouched.

Russia is waging war not only against Ukraine but also against some of its own people. At the forefront of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meat grinder—the macabre metaphor for Russia’s treatment of its own soldiers as expendable human waves—are various ethnic minorities from the poorest parts of Russia. As military recruiters sweep through Russia’s periphery, the war has hollowed out minority communities, while privileged residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg remain relatively untouched.

As Foreign Policy was among the first to report in May 2022, non-Russian regions such as Buryatia, Dagestan, and Tuva have borne the brunt of the Kremlin’s mobilization drive. Former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj said a few months later that Russia had turned its Mongolic ethnic groups—Buryats, Tuvans, and Kalmyks—into “nothing more than cannon fodder.”

After more than three years of war, little has changed. “Russia’s recruitment of soldiers to fight in its war in Ukraine has disproportionately drawn from the country’s Indigenous peoples