Russia Mobilizing ‘Orders of Magnitude More’ Sakha Men than Their Share of Russian Population, Sakha Congress President Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 30 – If the Russian defense ministry mobilizes men from Sakha proportionate to their number in the population of the Russian Federation, it should be taking approximately 2,000 men from the republic. But in fact, Moscow officials have been taking “orders of magnitude more than that number, according to Ivan Shamayev.

            In an open appeal to Vladimir Putin, Russian defense minister Sergey Shoygu, and the leaders of the Sakha Republic, the president of the Congress of Sakha says this reflects “the crudest possible violations” of the law and human rights and threatens the population of the republic (sakhalife.ru/otkrytoe-pismo-ivana-shamaeva-o-chastichnoj-mobilizaczii-v-yakutii-telegram/).

            Shamayev made five demands:

·       First, that Moscow make public the exact number of men mobilized from Sakha.

·       Second, that Moscow free Sakha from this mobilization because of the critical role in plays in the Arctic.

·       Third, that Moscow free Sakha men engaged in traditional forms of economic activity from military service.

·       Fourth, that Moscow free from miliary service the representatives of the numerically small indigenous peoples of the North.

·       And fifth, that Moscow use any men mobilized from Sakha to guard important sites in the republic rather than send them to other parts of the Russian Federation or abroad.

 

(For documentation of Shamayev’s complaints and for additional violations of Russian law and human rights in Sakha in the course of the first days of the mobilization campaign, violations officials say have now been corrected, see culturalsurvival.org/news/violations-indigenous-peoples-rights-republic-sakha-yakutia-during-partial-military.)

Shamayev’s letter is important for at least three reasons. First of all, it suggests that Moscow is going after more men in distant Russian and non-Russian areas than it is supposed to confident that no one will notice and that it will face fewer protests than if it tried to mobilize men in major urban centers.

Second, it shows that non-Russians are in fact very sensitive to this issue and that they are prepared to protest via letters like Shamayev’s and potentially in the streets. And third, it highlights the prospect that anger about the way mobilization is being carried out is likely to trigger broader complaints and demands, all of which could create more problems for Moscow.