‘This isn’t our war’

Russia’s minority languages allow speakers to talk more candidly about the war in Ukraine, an analysis of online comments reveals. Here’s what they say.

With freedom of speech hamstrung in Russia for years now, ordinary people have learned to stick to a narrow set of phrases when talking about the war in Ukraine. But in Russia’s national republics like Tatarstan, Buryatia, and Bashkortostan, residents have found a workaround: their own native languages. Novaya Gazeta Europe analysed hundreds of thousands of social media comments in Russia’s major minority languages. In them, users discuss the war in ways that rarely surface in Russian-language comments on the same threads: they curse it, pray for peace, yearn for their countrymen to come home, and mourn the dead. Below is an English-language summary of the main takeaways.

In October 2024, Artur Gadelshin, a musician from Russia’s Republic of Bashkortostan, died in the full-scale war in Ukraine. Soon after, his song “Sons of Bashkortostan” became an anthem among soldiers from the republic. A regional social media group posted a video obituary showing Artur standing in uniform, rifle in hand, as the song plays.

While the post itself is in Russian, almost all the comments underneath it are in Bashkir. For example:

• “Such a shame. Decent guys dying for nothing. May their souls be in heaven.”

• “We’re running out of men. The generation of 20-year-olds has started laying down their lives in a needless war, and nobody will say a word against it.”

• “Oh, when will this bloodshed end?”

• “This cursed war is taking our noblest boys… Artur was a man born, heart and soul, to work with children… And the love he had for his homeland!”

• “We’ve lost a son, a hero, in this cursed war.”

Russia’s minority languages have given their speakers a way to talk about the war free of officialese. Users of VKontakte and Telegram in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Tuva, Yakutia, and Buryatia — regions where people actively use their national languages — use the word “war”, wish for it to end soon, pray for their neighbours to return, and grieve their deaths.

Novaya Europe analysed comments from over 21,700 groups and channels in the republics where minority languages are most widely used. These include public pages for classified ads, news and dating; pages run by state agencies; and the channels of regional governors. Although 98% of the 53.2 million comments are in Russian, non-Russian comments makes up more than 10% in some regions (Chechnya and Tuva) and between 2.4% and 3% in others (North Ossetia, Yakutia, Bashkortostan, and Tatarstan).

Since the war began, reports of local deaths have become a fixture of regional news feeds. Nearly one in 10 comments in Tatar, Bashkir, Yakut, Buryat, Tuvan, and Ossetian appears under a post about the war and its casualties.

In these republics, users are on average three times more likely to comment in their native language under obituaries than under other posts.

Calling the war a war

From the first days of the invasion, the Russian authorities have presented the war as a “common cause” for all of Russia’s diverse citizenry. In early March 2022, in a speech honouring the “heroism” of a killed Dagestani soldier, Vladimir Putin declared that he himself was “a Lak, a Dagestani, a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordvin, an Ossetian.”

Military units from Russia’s national republics often carry names in their national languages. Tatarstan has battalions called “Alga” (“Forward”), “Timer” (“Iron”) and “Batyr” (“Hero”). Bashkortostan has “Vatan” (“Homeland”) and the drone unit “Aigir” (“Stallion”). Yakutia has the “Bootur” (“Hero”) detachment.

The authorities also use these languages to lure people into the war, with minority-language signs and online posts advertising military recruitment contracts.

To tailor their message to local audiences, state media have even tried to translate the chief euphemism for “war”, the “special military operation”. A photo from one broadcast of a Buryat TV studio shows a sign in front of the hosts that reads, in Buryat: “We are forbidden to say war, we say SPECIAL OPERATION”. Media and officials use similar euphemisms in Tatar, Bashkir, Tuvan, and Yakut.

But none of these translations has caught on. In everyday speech, residents most often just use their language’s word for “war” when talking about the invasion of Ukraine.

Only in Yakutia and Tuva do people actively use the Russian abbreviation “SVO” (“Special military operation”) in comments in their own languages. Even there, “war” remains the most common term, and people use the word two to three times more often in their own language than in Russian.

“Neologisms like ‘special military operation’ appeared in the native languages after calling a war a war became off-limits. Buryat, Kalmyk, and Chuvash newspapers rolled out their own versions right away,” says a sociolinguist who specialises in minority languages and asked to remain anonymous. “But local media still prefer to write about the war in Russian. Wishing a fellow villager a happy 80th birthday goes in the native language, while news about the ‘SVO’ goes in Russian.”

‘May the war end’

People in Russia’s national republics don’t just call the war a war — they speak about it in ways Russian speakers don’t. In Bashkir and Tatar, users call it “cursed” and “senseless”. In Tuvan, they call it “black”, “ruinous”, “terrifying” and “cruel”. In Buryat, they call it “vile”, and in Buryat and Sakha alike, it’s a “war-calamity”. None of the comments analysed used comparable expressions in Russian.

Often people simply wish for the war to end. Novaya Europe’s analysis found hundreds of comments in minority languages with nearly identical wording — “May the war end” — and no comparable formulations in Russian.

Some commenters wrote about how senseless the war is:

• “Boys are dying for nothing. When will this war end?” (Bashkir)

• “Oh Allah, it wrenches the soul. Children are dying in this war.” (Tatar)

Others warn their neighbours:

• “Young guys, why would you go to war? Be careful, don’t go.” (Yakut)

And some say outright that the war is “not our war”:

• “It’s a shame. When will the war finally end? There aren’t many of us Tuvans as it is.” (Tuvan)

• “Don’t fight for someone else’s world. This isn’t our war, we need freedom.” (Bashkir)

‘Come back unharmed’

One of the main themes is people wishing their countrymen a safe return home. Phrases like “May they return healthy” and “Come back unharmed” turn up in comments in every language, but in Russian they appear dozens of times less often.

The theme of coming home alive runs through both Tatar and Tuvan comment threads. In Bashkir, waiting for soldiers to return is the single most common topic, making up 8% of comments.

The toll of the war is felt more acutely in Russia’s ethnic republics than in other regions. According to calculations by Mediazona and the BBC, Tuva has had the highest death rate per capita of any region, followed by Buryatia.

In the Buryatian village of Chika, near the Mongolian border, 10 people have died out of 525 residents, almost 2% of the population. In Komsomolskoye, also in Buryatia, the figure is 9 out of 525. Ethnic Buryats make up 2.3% of Russia’s dead, even though they are just 0.34% of Russia’s population, while ethnic Russians account for 70.6% of the dead against 80.9% of the population. The republics also lead in absolute losses, with Bashkortostan and Tatarstan at the top. A Muscovite is 25 times less likely to die in the war in Ukraine than a resident of Chukotka or Tuva. According to economic media outlet The Bell, a region’s death toll correlates directly with its poverty rate.