Sakha Activists Meet in Secret to Plan Campaign for Independence of Their Republic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 13 – Inspired by the actions of people in other regions and republics within the current borders of the Russian Federation and by the declaration of the Tokyo Forum of Peoples of Post-Russia, national activists in Sakha (Yakutia) met in secret to create a committee to press for the independence of their republic.

            Information about this meeting is necessarily sketchy, but it is sufficient to conclude that nationalist aspirations are intensifying among the peoples east of the Urals after the Tokyo Forum (t.me/freeyakutiafoundation/3276 and abn.org.ua/en/liberation-movements/hey-will-seek-the-independence-of-the-region-a-secret-congress-was-held-in-yakutia-to-secede-from-russia/).

            If Sakha were to gain independence, it would be a country larger than all of the EU states taken together and would be enormously rich in terms of a broad range of natural resources. But its location with sea borders only on the Arctic and its small population – just under one million – make its pursuit of independence difficult but not impossible.

            But before dismissing this possibility out of hand, one should remember that the Soviets took many years to establish effective control over this distant and far-flung land and that the numerically small peoples have enormous resources to resist and then promote their goals, as outlined in Russian émigré writer Edward Topol’s 1986 novel, Red Snow.