Andrey Danilov, ‘the Saami Navalny,’ Says Separatism is ‘Nonsense’ for His Nation but that It will Survive

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 19 – Andrey Danilov, known to his friends and supporters as “the Saami Navalny,” says that separatism is “nonsense” for his numerically small people in the Russian North – there are only about 1300 left there  --  but that his nation will survive because its members have their own strategy for dealing with the governments under which they live.

            That strategy, he says, combines a readiness to work with the governments on whose territory they live while simultaneously resisting attacks on their culture and language and withdrawing to the north when these states adopt aggressive strategies against them (nemoskva.net/2026/06/19/saami-my-est/).

            And they have the advantage, Danilov continues, in that there are Saami communities in Norway, Sweden and Finland, all of whom unlike Russia admitted guilt for their past genocidal policies and now actively support the Saami who live on their territories, including those like him who have fled there from Russia.

            He had been deputy chairman of the Saami Parliament of the Kola Peninsula in the Russian Federation before he fled from that country when Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in February 2022. Now he lives among Saami in Norway and continues to speak out in defense of  his nation.

            Of mixed ethnicity himself – his father is a Saami while his mother is an ethnic Russian – Danilov grew up at a time when few of his age cohort spoke the Saami language; and he admits that he still has to use a dictionary when he does because he has not yet mastered all the words he needs.

            According to the émigré activist, “the Saami are a semi-nomadic cross-border numerically small people who have an anthem and a flag but have never had their own statehood” or army. “Today, they live in four countries, who colonized their lands and forces the Saami to retreat northward when that was possible.                     

“In Norway, Sweden and Finland, the Sami parliaments have been working as official representative bodies of the indigenous people for several decades,” he continues. “They do not pass laws, but without their consent, no issue concerning language, culture, reindeer husbandry and other traditional crafts can be resolved.”

            That is what the Saami people inside Russia have sought to copy. They too created representative bodies, but those were first taken over and gutted by the Russian authorities and then suppressed altogether, although Danilov still refers t himself as the deputy chairman of their common parliament.