Last Updated on January 15, 2026
Russian authorities have sharply increased pressure on the country’s Indigenous populations, detaining rights activists, tightening information control and disproportionately mobilizing Indigenous men into the war effort, Ukrainian intelligence and media reports said Wednesday.
In December 2025, security forces across several regions detained at least 17 Indigenous activists from the Altai, Sakha (Yakutia), Tomsk, Murmansk and Kemerovo regions and Krasnoyarsk Krai, according to a bulletin from Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. The activists had campaigned for environmental protection, preservation of traditional livelihoods and broader recognition of Indigenous concerns at international forums.
The wave of detentions, intelligence officials said, reflects what they described as a broader Kremlin strategy that mixes repression with the manipulation of official narratives. Moscow maintains that Russia is a “multinational state” committed to safeguarding the languages, cultures and traditions of its more than 190 ethnic groups. But in recent years independent Indigenous voices have been increasingly sidelined.
To bolster its image abroad, the government has reshaped the Association of Indigenous Minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East, an umbrella group for many small Indigenous communities. According to Ukrainian sources, the association now promotes only positions closely aligned with government policy, including overt support for the war against Ukraine, raising concerns about the organization’s independence.
Rights groups from within the Forum of Free States of the Post-Soviet Space — now banned and labeled a “terrorist” network by Russian authorities — say systemic rights violations against Indigenous communities have accelerated. Russia has outlawed more than 150 organizations in recent years through sweeping “extremism” laws that critics say are used to suppress dissent rather than genuine threats.
The war itself has further worsened conditions. In parts of Russia’s Far East, draft figures show Indigenous men being conscripted at significantly higher rates than ethnic Russians, rights monitors say — a disparity that activists warn could hasten the demographic decline of already small populations.
Analysts say Indigenous populations have endured decades of marginalization under Moscow’s centralized policies. Beyond the latest detentions, this includes limits on cultural expression, environmental degradation tied to resource extraction, and uneven application of legal protections — trends documented by international groups and human rights observers like IWGIA.
Kremlin spokespeople have previously denied systemic abuses while characterizing restrictions on civil society as a necessary step to countering extremism. But critics say that framing Indigenous rights defenders as security threats undercuts Russia’s international obligations and threatens the survival of communities already classified as “small-numbered peoples.” They are calling for independent monitoring and increased global scrutiny as pressure on Russia’s Indigenous population intensifies.
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