Paul Goble
Staunton, June 17 – In Kabardino-Balkaria, local activists, most Kabards, a branch of the Circassian nation, have come out against the plans of officials there to strip their republic’s constitution of provisions that give the republic and its people the right to oppose any change in that federal subject (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/06/leading-opposition-figures-in-kabardino.html).
They have now been joined in this protest by the leaders of more than 40 Circassian organizations in Turkey, something that has transformed a domestic problem into an international one for Moscow (zapravakbr.ru/ne-dopustit-peresmotra-klyuchevykh-osn/ and zapravakbr.ru/sorok-odna-kavkazskaya-obshchestvennaya-organizatsiya-turtsii-obratilas-k-rukovodstvu-i-parlamentu-kbr/).
No non-Russian nation within the Russian Federation has more of its members living abroad than the Circassians – some seven million in all and more than half of those in Turkey – and consequently what Moscow does to the Circassians living inside the Russian Federation – about 700,000 – has an outsized influence.
But more important, this foreign base of support gives Circassians within the Russian Federation a far greater ability to defend themselves and advance their cause and is one reason why the Circassian nation may be one of the first to escape Moscow’s control as the disintegration of Russia continues.
For a discussion of that possibility, see this author’s argument at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/12/circassians-have-chance-to-lead-coming.html.
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