Indigenous people are forcibly recruited for the war in Ukraine: "Terrible for us"

Yana Tannagasheva belongs to the Shor indigenous people from southern Siberia.

She has been a political refugee in Sweden for four years, but receives several reports from her home country.

"It's terrible for us"

According to her, it is clear that the Russian government partially targeted indigenous peoples and other minorities when they forcibly recruited soldiers.

- It is terrible for us.

There are many Buryats, Yakuts, Shores and Sami who have been mobilized and sent to Ukraine, she says in this week's 15 minutes from Sápmi.

She continues:

- It is easier for the Russian government to mobilize indigenous people who are poor and cannot resist.

They cannot resist the Russian government.

Ethnic minorities are powerless and disenfranchised.

Minorities overrepresented

SVT's Russia correspondent Bert Sundström has a similar picture of the situation.

He states that a large part of the forced recruitment took place in precisely areas populated by minorities.

- There are also statistics, not so reliable but still, which point to the fact that when you count who has died so far in the war, there is an over-representation of people who can somehow be counted as minorities, he says.

See more in the clip above or in 15 minutes from Sápmi on SVT2, Saturday at 16:05.

Or watch the program on SVT Play.