Russia’s Ethnic Minorities: Between Repression and Decolonization

The Russian-language distinction between rossiisky (referring to Russian citizens) and russky (referring to ethnic Russians) is uncommon in most other languages. Yet it is useful: many inhab­i­tants of Russia are not ethnic Russians. According to the most recent census, 71 percent identify as Russian; by that measure, an estimated one in four or five inhab­i­tants belongs to an Indigenous people or an ethnic minority. In official termi­nology, this form of ethnic identi­fi­cation is classified as nation­ality. The Russian Consti­tution right at its beginning – in the preamble – speaks of the “multi­na­tional people of the Russian Feder­ation” as “the sole source of power.” The larger people, such as Tatars, Bashkirs and Yakuts, are referred to as ethnic minorities. By contrast, “Indigenous small-numbered peoples” are defined as ethnic commu­nities with fewer than 50,000 members who live in their ancestral homelands. Russia’s “indigenous” population thus numbers about 315,000, of whom the Siberian Nenets are the largest group.

Russia’s colonial history

Russia‘s multi­ethnic makeup has historical roots. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Moscow embarked on a colonial expansion southward and eastward, which eventually reached all the way to the Pacific and, for a time, even included Alaska. It incor­po­rated into the Tsarist Empire terri­tories inhabited by other peoples. These peoples were violently conquered, russified, and partially chris­tianized. These conquests are the reason why the Russian Feder­ation is today the world’s largest country by territory. Russia has never reckoned with its colonial legacy, which also remains poorly under­stood inter­na­tionally. In the course of the Soviet Union’s collapse, some of the colonized regions began striving for self-determination.

In 1991, Chechnya declared indepen­dence as the “Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.” Other regions issued decla­ra­tions of sover­eignty in pursuit of greater autonomy within the Russian Feder­ation, including Tatarstan, Yakutia/​Sakha, and Bashko­r­tostan. Russia’s ethnic minorities demanded greater cultural and political indepen­dence, as well as control over their own resources. Yakutia, for example, possesses not only oil, natural gas and coal, but also minerals, diamonds and metals. Chechnya was forcibly reinte­grated into the Russian Feder­ation after two brutal wars, while the other regions lost most of the autonomy rights gained during the 1990s after Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999.

Margin­al­ization is an everyday reality

Within the Russian Feder­ation, there is a sharp economic divide between the cities in the country’s west – above all Moscow and St. Petersburg – and the regions, many of which are inhabited by Indigenous peoples and minorities. Poverty rates there are high, infra­structure is poorly developed and often dilap­i­dated. Amid the war in Ukraine, precarious living condi­tions have induced a dispro­por­tion­ately high rate of members of ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples to enlist in the Russian army, while others were forcibly mobilized.

According to an inves­ti­gation by the local outlet Lyudi Baikala, residents of the Republic of Buryatia in Russia’s far east, where the Buryat minority makes up a signif­icant share of the population, face a risk of dying in the war in Ukraine roughly thirty times higher than residents of Moscow. An ongoing project by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona, based on death notices, has also found a big contrast between center and periphery: the largest number of the currently 225,019 confirmed deaths come from Bashko­r­tostan, followed by Tatarstan.

Discrim­i­nation also exists at the level of general racism toward immigrants, as well as toward minorities. Despite the fact that the Russian consti­tution is supposed to guarantee the protection of ethnic and cultural diversity, discrim­i­nation remains deeply rooted in society. For example, housing adver­tise­ments commonly state that apart­ments are for rent “only to Slavs.” “Non-Russian” has become an insult — though decolonial activists in exile have in turn reclaimed it as an empow­ering term of self-description. According to reporting by the U.S.-funded broad­caster Current Time TV, hostility toward migrants, Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities has even increased since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Ruthless repression and a decolonial façade

Since 2022, Russia’s Indigenous peoples have been subjected to increas­ingly ruthless repression. In June 2024, the country’s Supreme Court declared a nonex­istent “anti-Russian separatist movement” to be an extremist organi­zation. This legal maneuver, which was also used against the LGBT movement, allows the Russian judiciary to deploy the country’s draconian extremism laws against virtually anyone who advocates for the rights of ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples. Conse­quen­tally, the “Free Nations Forum” in December 2024 was added to Russia’s register of terrorist organi­za­tions with alleged 172 struc­tural subdi­vi­sions. However, some of those subdi­vi­sions do not exist, and those that do are not organi­za­tionally connected.

In December, police searched the homes of at least 17 activists. Among them was Darya Egereva, a member of the Siberian Selkup people estimated to number only around 3,500. Egereva (also spelt Yegeryeva) was arrested along with fellow rights defender Natalia Leongardt. Both women are currently in pre-trial detention and face up to 20 years in prison over alleged involvement in a terrorist organi­zation. Prose­cutors link their involvement in the “Aborigen Forum” – an informal associ­ation of activists and experts on Indigenous peoples – to the “Free Nations Forum,” asserting that the former functions as a subdi­vision of the latter. This claim is false and consti­tutes a fabri­cated allegation. The next court hearing is scheduled for 11 June.

Paradox­i­cally, in November 2025, Putin intro­duced the “Day of the Languages of the Russian Feder­ation” and the “Day of the Indigenous Minorities of the Russian Feder­ation” as remem­brance days. The latter is intended to preserve “the tradi­tional way of life, economic activity, crafts, and distinct culture” of these peoples. While the Russian leadership suppresses political activists – presumably also because it fears indepen­dence movements like those of the 1990s – it is simul­ta­ne­ously constructing a decolonial façade intended, among other things, to impress the Global South.

The war, and the resulting ideological emphasis on the “unity of the peoples of Russia” – Putin even placed the current year under this motto – ensure that neither dissent nor genuine pluralism are tolerated. Polit­i­cally active members of ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples who, for example, demand environ­mental and cultural protection, are portrayed as disruptive elements threat­ening the cohesion of a society at war. The small minority of more radical decolonial activists, who openly call for breaking up Russia into independent states, serve the Kremlin as a pretext to place everyone under blanket suspicion.

Decol­o­nization on the new PACE platform’s agenda

While repression in Russia continues to intensify, more hopeful devel­op­ments are taking place in exile. On October 1, 2025, the Parlia­mentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), adopted a resolution creating a “platform for dialogue with Russian democ­ratic forces.” The platform for the first time provides democ­ra­t­i­cally-minded Russians an insti­tution on the European level that gives them a voice. (Russia was a member of PACE between 1996 and 2022, but was expelled from the Council of Europe after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.) The resolution states that partic­i­pants should be well-known figures from exile of “the highest moral standing” who rotate annually. Since they lack legit­imacy through free elections, they do not have voting rights on PACE resolu­tions. They can, however, partic­ipate in working groups and serve in an advisory capacity.

On January 29, the platform’s first meeting took place behind closed doors in Stras­bourg. What is noteworthy and especially contro­versial within the Russian opposition is its strong focus on ethnic minorities and Indigenous peoples. The PACE resolution empha­sizes that the “question of the rights of the Indigenous peoples and national minorities of the Russian Feder­ation,” as well as the preparedness to engage in meaningful dialogue with their repre­sen­ta­tives, plays a critical role in shaping a democ­ratic political system: “The issue of overcoming the colonial legacy of the Russian Feder­ation would have to be addressed, including the concerns and interests of Indigenous and colonised peoples residing in the terri­tories of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation.”

Accord­ingly, the resolution reserves one third of the platform’s seats for repre­sen­ta­tives of Indigenous peoples and minorities. This compar­a­tively high quota is largely attrib­utable to the initiative of the Ukrainian PACE delegation, which was rather skeptical of the creation of the Russian platform and wanted to establish a counter­weight to prominent Russian opposition figures. Members include Ekaterina Kuznetsova, an artist and chair of the House of Ingria in Narva, Estonia; Pavel Sulyandziga, an activist from the Udege people of eastern Siberia and founder of the Batani Foundation for the protection of small Indigenous peoples; Lana Pylaeva, head of the independent media portal Komi Daily; and Vasily “Batlai” Matenov, a member of the editorial board of Asians of Russia and a Buryat decolonial activist.

It remains to be seen how influ­ential the platform will ultimately prove, and whether it can foster a broader and more sustained awareness of Russia’s colonial legacy and its ongoing patterns of discrim­i­nation against Indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities.