Buryats who Fled to Mongolia to Avoid Mobilization Increasingly Want Independence or Union with Mongolia

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 5 – Many young men in the Transbaikal have fled to Mongolia to avoid being mobilized by Moscow to fight in Ukraine. Perhaps as many as a third of them – some 30,000 or so – are ethnic Buryats either from Buryatia or from adjoining federal subjects of the Russian Federation.

            According to interviews with some of them by the People of Baikal portal, many of them have been radicalized by the experience and now are more committed to independence for Buryatia or union with Mongolia if Ulan-Bator will agree (baikal-journal.ru/2023/12/05/nashi-nastoyashhie-bratya-mongoly/).

            It is impossible to know how representative the Buryats with whom the portal spoke are, but those who were prepared to speak said that they now much better living in a place where they were part of the ethnic majority – Buryats and Mongols are closely related – in comparison to the way they were treated as a despised minority in the Russian Federation or even in Buryatia itself.

            One of the Buryats with whom the portal’s journalists spoke said that “now, many say that Buryatia must separate from Russia. If Mongolia would accept us on good terms, then I would not be opposed to uniting with it.” Others say that their nation will die out if it remains in Russia but can flourish as the Mongols have if it achieves independence or a Mongol union.