“Is poverty a sin?” 1 in 5 Russian casualties are from this region

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On the 28th of last month (local time), at a sports center in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia, a funeral was held for four soldiers from the region who died while serving in the Ukrainian battlefield.

The Republic of Buryatia is located in Central Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and Mongolia to the south. It is 6,400 km away from Ukraine, which is at war with Russia.

According to Yonhap News, Olga Odoeva, a relative of Bullat Odoev, one of the four dead, said that it was not her and her family’s will to participate in the Ukraine war.

“He just didn’t want to disappoint his team, he felt obligated to go to war,” Olga said.

British daily The Guardian reported on the 30th (local time) that many of the soldiers who took part in the invasion of Ukraine came from ethnic groups as far away from the mainland as Russia, such as the Republic of Buryatia.

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Buryatian independent journalist Rudi Baikala said 45 people have been identified so far from the area, and the actual death toll is estimated to be much higher.

A senator from the Republic of Tuva, who is in a similar position to the Republic of Buryatia, said 96 people were killed in the region.

In the Republic of Dagestan in the mountainous Caucasus, regarding 130 soldiers died on the battlefield.

In these three locations alone, 271 people lost their lives during the invasion of Ukraine. Considering that Russia has officially reported 1351 deaths so far, more than 20% came from these three regions.

Two of the four people who held a funeral in Buryatia belong to the 11th Guards Airborne Brigade, which was involved in the operation to occupy Antonov Airport in the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine. This unit was also deployed in the Ukrainian civil war in 2015 and is said to have supported pro-Russian separatist rebels.

Russian military expert Pavel Luzin analyzed that the reason that a significant number of ethnic minorities from remote areas are mobilized for war is because they pay less attention compared to soldiers from major urban areas such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Knowing this, he pointed out, senior officers, such as military commanders, also send soldiers from remote areas to dangerous areas when conducting operations.

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