Kalmyk Buddhist Leader Now in Mongolian Emigration who Denounced Putin’s War in Ukraine Reflects on His Life and Achievements

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 6 – Telo Tulku Rinpoche, spiritual leader of Kalmykia’s Buddhists for 30 years, was the first senior leader of a religious community in the Russian Federation to denounce Putin’s war in Ukraine and was ousted and has been forced to remain in Mongolian emigration as a result.

            He remains the Dalai Lama’s representative to the Buddhist peoples of the Russian Federation but exercises what influence he has through his contacts with the large Kalmyk, Buryat and Tyvan diasporas in Mongolia which have emerged because men from all three Buddhist nations have fled there to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine.

            Rinpoche has now given a 4,000-word interview to the Meduza news portal in which he reflects on his American childhood – he was born in Pennsylvania in 1972 – his training in India under the direction of the Dalai Lama, and his involvement with the Kalmyks and other Buddhist peoples of the Russian Federation (meduza.io/en/feature/2025/08/06/what-was-difficult-was-to-remain-silent).

            For background on Rinpoche’s being forced out as leader of Kalmykia’s Buddhists, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/kremlins-dismissal-of-kalmyk-religious.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/ouster-of-buddhist-leader-in-kalmykia.html.

            For Moscow’s concerns about Buddhists in Russia and their divisions, including over the war in Ukraine, see not only his detailed new interview but also windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/02/russias-buddhists-as-deeply-divided-on.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/01/buddhist-community-in-russia-and-its.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/01/buddhism-becoming-protest-religion-in.html.