Moscow Gives Indigenous Status to One Percent or Less of Russia’s Population, Evenk Scholar Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 30 – Like other countries, the Russian Federation seeks to control the indigenous peoples on its territory so that the regime and its business allies can have access to the valuable mineral resources in those regions. But unlike them, Yekaterian Zibrova says, it restricts the number of peoples who have indigenous status and thus greater legal protection.

            The Evenk scholar who teaches at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa says that Russian laws limiting that status to groups pursuing a traditional way of life and numbering under 50,000 people means under one percent of Russia’s residents have it (themoscowtimes.com/2026/04/30/regions-calling-who-is-indigenous-in-russia-anyway-a92647).

            Numerically small groups of the size of her own Evenks have more protections under Russian law, although these are typically ignored when the economic or strategic needs of the Russian state are involved, than do larger non-Russian minorities, especially those without the status of an autonomous republic. 

            “Indigenous groups not recognized by Russia” as indigenous such as the Tatars, Zibrova says, “account for roughly 12% of Russia’s population, while those recognized [now some 57] are between 0.6% to 1%. Together, they live on around 20% of Russia’s territory” which just happens to be where some of its largest holdings of natural resources.

            If Moscow were to recognize all of this 12 percent of its population as indigenous, she continues, these peoples “would gain stronger legal grounds to demand restricted access or resource control based on indigenous rights.” But that is unlikely because then “Russia’s own criteria of indigeneity would work against the state.”

            According to Zibrova, Russia’s efforts to limit the status of indigeneity are breaking down at the international level because the UN, PACE and other international bodies are increasingly treating non-Russians inside the Russian Federation as indigenous even if Moscow continues to insist on this distinction.