How the war in Ukraine fuels separatism in far-flung Russia

• Paul Alexander

  foreign publisher

“The time for demonstrations and protest marches is over. From now on, Putin’s henchmen can count on Molotov cocktails and bullets.” This was the first message on the Bashkir Resistance Committee’s Telegram channel a month and a half ago, immediately after Putin announced the mobilization.

At the same time, the resistance group published a handbook for partisan struggle and instructions on how to prepare Molotov cocktails. A series of attacks followed in the remote republic of Bashkortostan south of the Urals.

The first target was a local recruiting agency. Resistance fighters also torched an office of the ruling United Russia party, as well as transformer boxes at railway junctions and a large storage tank at a station this week.

The Kremlin is now starting to worry. “In WWII, there was a simple solution for these types of saboteurs: summary execution,” he wrote Putin’s spokesman Medvedev on his Telegram channel.

While in other parts of Russia little is seen of open struggle against the regime, a resistance movement is clearly emerging in Bashkortostan. Especially now that the mobilization is disproportionately affecting the region, just like other poor republics with a large ethnic minority. Bashkortostan ranks fourth on the list with the highest number of military deaths recorded so far.

The face of this resistance is Ruslan Gabbasov of the Bashkir National Political Center, who fled to Lithuania. In order not to harm the partisan struggle, he does not reveal his contacts with resistance fighters. “But we are pursuing the same goal: the overthrow of the Putin regime,” he said in a telephone conversation with NOS.

He also declined to say how many resistance fighters are currently active in Bashkortostan. “The partisans operate in cells of three to five men who know nothing of each other and of each other’s actions. Everything takes place in total secrecy”.

The various Telegram channels of the Bashkir resistance have between 1,000 and 3,000 followers. According to Gabbasov, the support of the local population is growing day by day. “With his mobilisation, Putin has suddenly brought war into everyone’s homes. All Bashkirs have a brother, father, son or friend who was sent to war in Ukraine.”

“This is not our war” is now heard everywhere in the republic. “Why would we want to fight for an empire that has always denied us our language and national identity, just like it is doing now with Ukraine,” Gabbasov says.

Even the Bashkirs defended their national heritage before the war. In 2020, for example, mass riots erupted when the government issued a mining permit for Kushtau, a sacred Bashkir mountain. The Bashkir activists’ struggle therefore revolved around more freedom and equal rights for the region within the Russian Federation. Now the goal is independence and there are already several plans for their own passports and national symbols.

Earlier, Gabbasov reported on his Telegram channel that freedom fighters are already creating a Bashkir army. His fighters swear allegiance to a free Bashkortostan. Gabbasov: “If Putin’s regime falls, for example due to military mutinies in Moscow, Bashkir partisan fighters are ready to break away from Russia.”

According to Russian political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, a national consciousness has developed among Bashkir intellectuals in recent years. “They question the legitimacy of Moscow-appointed administrators,” to say him on the independent Russian news site Vjorstka. “And with their ideals of freedom they actually pose a threat to power.”

Local businessmen would finance the fight for freedom. Actions of resistance must be done in secret, Oreshkin said. “Such a struggle can only be effective if the movement operates underground.”

In the struggle for independence, Bashkortostan is positioning itself as a pioneer among the national republics, says Oreshkin. “Putin opened Pandora’s box with his war. His disastrous policies are giving a huge boost to ethnic resistance groups. The country will collapse sooner or later.”

Resistance groups in other republics now also have Telegram channels, such as the Siberian resistance and the Dageraad van Dagestan. “You will see,” says Gabbasov, “as soon as Bashkortostan declares independence, such regions as Yakutia, Tuva and Dagestan will follow.”