Tuvan Women’s Movement Seeks to Unite Women of All Non-Russian Nations against Common Problems

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – The Tuvan movement, Chavaga Media, has announced plans to launch on March 8, International Women’s Day, a program for women in all the non-Russian regions and republics to protect themselves against phenomena like stalking and the use of sexualized deepfakes without the consent of those pictured.

            Chavaga is dedicated to the life and history of women in Tyv, has organzed exhibits and meetings in that republic, and has a bilingual telegram channel with some 13,000 subscribers (t.me/chavaga_media/5217 and semnasem.org/news/2026/10/24/fem-media-iz-nacionalnyh-respublik-zapustili-proekt-po-bezopasnosti-zhenshin).

            This effort builds on the anti-war efforts of various women’s groups in the last several years to protest Putin’s war in Ukraine and its excessive use of non-Russian men to fight it, but it represents a new development in that it is explicitly directed at uniting non-Russian women against common problems women face everywhere.

            As such, and because this effort is being carried out by people on the ground rather than those who have been compelled to flee Russia, it deserves close attention, something it hasn’t received much of outside of Russia so far because Tyva is so far from Moscow and because Chavaga has focused on everyday issues rather than bold proclamations.

            A perusal of its telegram channel -- t.me/chavaga_media/ -- highlights just how much can be accomplished with this approach and how it even more than some émigré actions can do to lay the foundation for national and pan-national movements now and in the post-Putin future.