Secession? Bakhoshtan
Things are happening within the Federation. There is an air of resistance that is starting to take shape. First, I have raised the issue of Dagestan, in the northern Caucasus. Now we have stirrings in Bashkiria:
Gabbasov told Layout that after the announcement of mobilization, many former activists of the banned Bashkort left Russia for Kazakhstan. Those who stayed decided to hide.
“They don’t want to fight for the empire. They believe that this is not our war,” says Gabbasov. — Why should the Bashkirs die for the “Russian world” somewhere in Ukraine? The Ukrainians did nothing wrong to us, and the empire always pressed us. They pressed our Bashkir language, they planted our leaders. Why should we fight for them now?”
Bashkortostan is the leader in the Volga Federal District in terms of the number of local residents killed in Ukraine.
The Bashkir authorities manage to recruit volunteers to regional detachments and fulfill the mobilization plan, because they “use the credulity of the Bashkir people and play on “patriotic strings”, Gabbasov believes. In his opinion, it also plays into the hands of the authorities that the Bashkirs are a historically paramilitary people and participated in all wars on the side of the empire.
This is a part of a much larger piece in a regional paper. It points to trouble…