How Stable Are Russia’s Non-Russian Regions?

Russia is waging war not only against Ukraine, but also against some of its own people. At the forefront of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meat grinder – a horrific metaphor for Russia’s treatment of its soldiers as expendable humankind – are various ethnic minorities from Russia’s poorest regions. As military recruiters invaded Russia’s periphery, war broke out hollow outside minority communities, while the privileged populations of Moscow and St. Petersburg remained relatively untouched.

Foreign policy was also among the first to do so a report In May 2022, non-Russian regions such as Buryatia, Dagestan and Tuva were annexed. I bore the brunt From the mobilization campaign in the Kremlin. Former Mongolian President Tsakhiagin Elbegdorj He said A few months later, Russia turned its Mongol ethnic groups – the Buryats, Tuvans, and Kalmyks – into “nothing more than cannon fodder.”

After more than three years of war, not much has changed. “Russia’s recruitment of soldiers to fight in its war in Ukraine has drawn disproportionately from the country’s indigenous population,” Isabella Tabarowski, a fellow at the Wilson Center, said. books In March. CIt’s Buryat Advocacy group, You write that At least 2,470 residents of Buryatia, the so-called ethnic republic in Russia’s far east, were killed during fighting in Ukraine. By then. This figure, which is likely an underestimate, includes both ethnic Buryats and Russians and is 27 times the death rate among Muscovites. The Buryat minority is thus among those most affected by Putin’s war.

This discrimination based on race is not a coincidence. Like many multinational countries, Russia favors some ethnic groups over others. The Russian Empire favored Russian and Baltic German elites. The Soviet Union favored Russians, other Slavs, and, at least for a time, Jews. Despite paper guarantees of equality, Moscow today is unabashed Help yourself Ethnic Russian and Fetchies What she considers the civilizational mission that God has ordained for the Russian people. Among the Russian ethnic population, it is often discriminatory Explicit racist attitudes about Indigenous people In continuation of state policy.

The Kremlin is stark Abuse And frank to exploit It will likely backfire in the end. Russia’s ethnic minorities have long memories of their ancestors’ brutal invasion by imperial Russia, their status as second-class citizens in the Soviet Union, and the horrific violence committed against them leading up to Russia’s genocidal suppression of the Chechen revolution in the 1990s and early 2000s. These groups also know that the natural resources of their ancestral lands, including almost all Russian oil and gas, are financing the war that is killing their people. Although the war economy – in particular, soldiers’ enrollment bonuses, salaries, and… Luxurious death benefits To relatives – leading to a rise in living standards for some of Russia’s poorest regions, these same inequalities threaten to reignite and perhaps threaten the Russian state once the war is over.

Russia, like the Soviet Union and the Tsarist Empire before it, is an empire—a political system with a dominant ethnic core and subordinate ethnic peripheries that have been subjugated and colonized. The history of empires teaches us two things: first, that all empires eventually fall, and second, that modern empires are particularly fragile because they need to deal with the disruptive forces of nationalism and globalization. The desire of each individual to create his own nation-state is almost ubiquitous – even if, with the crucial exception of Chechnya, this desire is rarely evident in Russia today. The democratization of war with cheap drones and plentiful guns makes resistance easier. Digital communications undermine central control. The Russian colonial war in Ukraine, overt imperial nostalgia, and the use of minorities as cannon fodder removed the mask of empire.

All of this makes it increasingly likely that Russia will follow the Soviet Union’s path. What surprised most Western analysts at the time was that the Soviet empire was divided largely by non-Russian mobilization against the heart of the empire. To make sure, Thomas Grahama fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is right when he says that Russia today will not disintegrate, even in defeat: “[N]An ethnically homogeneous country like Russia—nearly 80% of whose population is ethnic Russian—has disintegrated under internal or external pressure in the modern era.

But apart from the fact that Russia’s census numbers exist Disputed And most likely We underestimate And minorities, Graham makes a mistake when he links disintegration with ethnic pluralism – as if states that collapse do so only as a result of the presence of multinational populations. The Russian Empire disintegrated due to a failed war and an internal coup; Next came non-Russian declarations of independence, from Ukraine to the Far East. The United States fell apart for a few years in the 1860s, not along racial, ethnic, or even religious lines, but because of the division caused by slavery within a dominant Anglo elite. In short, states can break up for any number of internal and external reasons. Ethnic pluralism facilitates the disintegration of the state, but it is not a necessary condition, and certainly not a sufficient condition.

When colonized people mobilize against the imperial core, it is often the result of systemic dissolution, not its cause. When destabilizing political and economic conditions enable national or ethnic mobilization, these groups have a good chance of riding instability toward independence. For example, anti-colonial liberation movements took off only after World War II created the conditions for independence by wiping out France and greatly weakening Britain.

Let us consider here again the Soviet Union. Non-Russian popular fronts emerged under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as an attempt to mobilize people to support his reform efforts. The wave of sovereignty declarations that followed occurred not because communists suddenly turned nationalists, but because the rapid erosion of central control and increasing systemic chaos encouraged and forced them to seek refuge in sovereignty. Even less independence-oriented Soviet republics, such as the Central Asian republics, jumped ship to preserve themselves.

This history also shows why it is misleading to focus on the degree to which residents of various Russian regions support autonomy or independence today. Attitudes can change quickly, and given the repressive nature of Putin’s fascist regime, silence and passivity make perfect sense at the moment.

Demographic and economic realities within regions complicate the picture. A long history of colonization and forced assimilation means that ethnic Russians – and those who identify as such – constitute the majority in most so-called national republics today. Tatarstan is rich in resources, where Honorary Tatar They make up less than half the population but sit on a vast peak Oil reservesis a useful example. Tatar population decreased By half a million between the 2010 and 2021 censuses to 4.7 million, while the number of native speakers of the Tatar language fell by about a quarter, a trend deepened by the decline in Tatar language teaching in schools.

But ethnic nationalism is not the only driver of the potential push toward autonomy. It can also result from Regional elites And seeking more control over local wealth. Given Tatarstan’s vast oil resources and large industrial base, local elites have a strong economic basis to challenge Moscow’s extraction of profits from the region. Areas like Tatarstan Bashkortostan pays much more into the federal budget than it does Receive In turn, fueling the latent discontent Towards Moscow.

Food shortages, alcoholism and crumbling infrastructure reveal the hollow core of Moscow’s claims to prosperity and well-being, including in the republics of Sakha and Chukotka, home to Dolgan, Yukagir and others. Indigenous peoples. In Khatanga, one of Russia’s northernmost settlements, residents line up for food brought in by plane that often expires. Like the Buryats, Arctic indigenous communities are among those with the highest rates Casualty rates In the war against Ukraine.

Ethnic targeting for military recruitment is only one element of tensions between center and periphery. According to the Moscow Times newspaper. Regional budgets It collapses under the weight of war spending and shrinking revenues. In Irkutsk, the authorities Shredder Education and health care budgets to remain solvent. Teachers are facing cuts in their salaries, and small businesses have been hit by new taxes to cover the growing deficit. The Kremlin’s war machine is depleting the regions that support the Russian state. Russia’s budget for 2026 Cut funding For 18 of 51 government programs, while Spending The budget for the police, National Guard, and security services will increase by 13%, reaching a record level of $47 billion.

Russia’s vulnerabilities are mutually reinforcing. that Can’t win it The war weakens the civilian economy and overwhelmingly exploits ethnic minorities and, increasingly, ethnic Russians as well. A weak economy deteriorates living standards and reduces the opportunity for citizens to view any outcome of the war as a victory. Finally, real and perceived exploitation ultimately threatens to delegitimize the war and the government that seeks it.

Russia today could easily face the same centrifugal forces that destroyed the Soviet Union. The Russian Federation contains several so-called national republics, administrative units that, like the constituent republics of the Soviet Union, reflect ancient ethnic boundaries and serve as institutional sources of identity and potential self-administration. Many of them enjoy great resource wealth, almost entirely extracted by the Kremlin. When the Soviet Union collapsed, a large number of Russian subregions collapsed as well Announce Sovereignty, with Chechnya declaring its complete independence. At the time, even Graham considered the disintegration of Russia a distinct possibility, as he claimed in a Columbia University lecture attended by one of the authors.

If it comes to a disintegration process, Chechnya will likely be at the forefront again. It is already formally independent, with its own powerful ruler, separate army, and adherence to Islamic law. If conditions inside Russia take a chaotic turn, perhaps in the wake of Putin’s departure, Chechnya is expected to jump ship. Dagestan and Ingushetia could follow, too Mostly Muslim and non-Russian. Like the Jamestown Foundation NotesProtests against the Russian war in Ukraine were largest last year Dagestan More than in any other Russian region, largely because the recruitment of young men to fight in Ukraine is widely seen as a threat to national identity. In regions such as Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, which have higher proportions of ethnic Russians, Tensions It is also increasing. All it takes is worsening systemic chaos and one or two breakaway regions to take the initiative; Others will feel emboldened to follow suit.

To be clear: None of this suggests that Russia faces inevitable collapse tomorrow. But the longer an unwinnable war, a weak economy, and discontent in the periphery persist, the greater the possibility that the center will lose control. In other words, the odds of disintegration will rise the longer Putin remains in power.

The drivers of the potential collapse are all internal, just as they were in the late 1980s. As was the case then, there was nothing the West could do to stave off this crisis. Indeed, supporting Putin’s repressive regime in the hope of achieving elusive stability will only worsen Moscow’s relations with its captive regions. Only Russia can halt this decline – by removing Putin from power, ending the war, treating ethnic minorities as fully equal citizens, disarming the economy, and redistributing resources. This is difficult, but it is the only way to save Russia from itself.