Part of the Buryats who as contractnik (contract soldiers) who fought in the Russian army in Ukraine returned to the capital Ulan-Ude last weekend, according to the human rights group Free Buryatia. The rest arrived in other cities in Russia.
The soldiers broke their contract last month, according to Aleksandra Garmazjapova, the head of the human rights group, after some of their wives called on the local governor to bring their husbands back from Ukraine. They said they were “morally and physically exhausted.”
The return of the Buryat soldiers is a sign that the dissatisfaction in the penniless republic about the high number of killed soldiers from Buryatia is growing. Due to the lack of jobs and low wages in Buryatia, many young Buryats are forced to look for work in the army.
In recent months, according to Garmazjapova, 500 Buryat soldiers have already knocked on her organization’s door because they did not know what they were doing in Ukraine and did not want to continue fighting.
It took the refusers a lot of effort to get out of their contract. Some soldiers already on their way home were sent back to the Luhansk region, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. There they were held in a camp and pressured with threats to appear in court.
Reports also come from other regions of Russia that have remained behind about soldiers refusing to continue fighting in Ukraine. According to the independent site media zone About 500 members of the National Guard from the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria returned home soon after the war started. They were intended to be used to maintain order in the areas occupied by the army, but instead were ordered to participate in the (failed) storming of Kiev.
After protests, the guards were allowed to return home from their superiors. Officially, the National Guard, a type of security forces directly under President Putin, is only allowed to operate on Russian territory. Yet, once home, the returned guards were immediately fired for “refusal to carry out orders.”