March 2022. Until then little known, the Buryat minority is put in the spotlight when soldiers designated as belonging to this ethnic group are accused of having perpetrated war crimes in Boutcha.
Ukrainian YouTube channels as well as so-called “liberal” Russian journalists castigated these non-Slavic soldiers, described as bestial, bloodthirsty and having a vocation, like the Chechens, to terrorize civilians.
To discover
Follow information on the war in Ukraine with the Figaro application
Alexandra Garmajapova, a former renowned journalist in Saint Petersburg, herself a Buryat and living abroad since 2016 - she has just been designated by the Russian justice "foreign agent" -, decides to counter this reputation.
She then published several videos that had gone viral of Buryats living in Ukraine or elsewhere abroad speaking out against the war.
The movement will grow and eventually become the Free Buratya Foundation.
It revises its objectives upwards and demonstrates in passing that the scandal of the “Buryats in Boutcha”…
This article is for subscribers only.
You have 70% left to discover.
Black-Friday
-70% on digital subscription
I ENJOY IT
Already subscribed?
Login