Dear deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, dear participants of the Round Table!
Thank you for the opportunity to speak at this meeting. I am from Buryatia, and I represent the movement for the independence of Buryatia Tusgaar Buryad Mongolia.
We believe that independence is the only way for us to survive as a people and ethnic group.
I am often asked why so many people from Buryatia are fighting in Ukraine. 300 years ago, after a 138-year bloody war, Buryatia was occupied by Russia and has been used as a colony ever since. Our lands were settled by Russian convicts, just as after the Holodomor, Red peasants were settled in Ukrainian huts. Our history was banned, our language was taken away, our 800-year-old written language was taken away, our male population is used primarily in all imperial wars. Buryat women and children were sold into slavery, as children are now being taken away from Ukraine, then, after processing in the Suvorov and Nakhimov schools, they can be used for new conquests. If Ukraine now loses this battle, it will face the same fate, the fate of people who have had their memory erased and have been taught that patriotism is Nazism only if it does not serve the interests of the Russian World.
Buryatia is one of the most beautiful and resourceful republics, but most of the income goes to Moscow, and a huge number of people live below the poverty line and are forced to sell their deaths because they will never earn so much in a lifetime.
And although, unfortunately, the Buryats do participate in this criminal war, it is beneficial for Russia to write off the crimes of the Russian army precisely on small nations. A couple of clichés in the style of “You are a Buryat, how glad I am”, several publications focusing on nationality, and a story is already being born about special atrocities, savagery, and some kind of national enmity and hatred for Ukraine among small peoples who have been in prison for centuries called the Russian Federation. Interestingly, this position can be traced not only in the Kremlin, but also among the Russian liberal opposition. Russian boys are good, but the Buryats, Chechens and Dagestanis are to blame for everything. This once again confirms that there can be no beautiful Russia of the future if people are infected with imperialism.
The purpose of the empire is not the welfare of the people, not the creation and improvement of life, but expansion. Like a virus that has no other meaning than to multiply and infect new people, the meaning of an empire is expansion, meaningless and endless. It doesn’t matter how many people are killed, because that’s what they need to die for the empire.
Today, the attention of the whole world is focused on Ukraine. Ukraine is fighting for its freedom, and at the same time for the freedom of hundreds of indigenous peoples of Russia. The victory of Ukraine is the only real chance to get rid of colonial slavery.
The empire must fall apart, otherwise no one will be safe. We need to unite and fight this monster together. We, Buryat activists, communicate with national diasporas around the world. People are depressed, shocked by what is happening, they want to do everything possible to make it end as soon as possible.
We believe that it is important that the indigenous peoples unite and fight not for the empire, but for their freedom, fight by any means. We appeal to the people’s deputies with a request to help and support the decolonization of Russia as the only condition for removing the permanent Russian imperial threat to neighbors, Europe and the world. The role of Ukraine and you, the people’s deputies, is the most key at this turning point in history.
We will be destroyed one by one, but if we unite, we will win!
Marina Khanhalayeva
