Buryatia is a sparsely populated region in the Far East of Russia, sharing its southern border with Mongolia. Normally away from the spotlight, Buryatia received vast media attention in the wake of the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, when military units based in Buryatia played a significant role in the assault on Ukraine\u2019s Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia regions; they accounted for a notable portion of Russia\u2019s war death toll. Moreover, immediately after the de-occupation of the Kyiv region in April 2022, the mass murder of Ukrainian civilians in the city of Bucha was blamed on troops from Buryatia, attracting even more negative attention to the region and its Indigenous population. The \u2018Putin\u2019s militant Buryats\u2019 meme, dating back to the 2015 Donbas war, took on a new, even more sinister meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
How much of those allegations are true?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Buryatia is indeed a heavily militarised region, with a very high number of military bases relative to its population. In that respect, it\u2019s no different from Russia\u2019s eastern regions sharing a border with China; the Mongolia\u2013Buryatia border has historically been considered a \u2018by-proxy\u2019 Chinese border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The majority of the military personnel at those bases are ethnic Russians, either from Buryatia or from other regions. The Indigenous peoples (Buryats, Evenks, and Soyots) make up less than one-third of Buryatia\u2019s population; the rest of the residents of Buryatia are mostly Russians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This demographic situation is connected to the history of the region. With the advent of the Soviet period, Buryats formed the Autonomous Buryat-Mongolian Republic within Russia. Due to Stalin\u2019s 1937 partitioning of Buryat-Mongolia, about one-third of Russia\u2019s Buryats ended up living outside Buryatia \u2013 either in the Transbaikal or Irkutsk regions. The Aga and Ust-Orda Autonomous Okrugs, formed after the partition, were eventually merged with the Transbaikal and Irkutsk regions, respectively, in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Putin\u2019s Russia, Buryatia has struggled economically, making the army a very competitive employer in the region. Thus, by 2014, many young men in Buryatia, regardless of ethnicity, had chosen to join the army as contract soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The above factors, along with the Russian military leadership\u2019s deployment policies, predetermined the role of the troops from Buryatia in the Russo-Ukrainian war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donbas War. Birth of the \u2018Putin\u2019s Militant Buryats\u2019 Meme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2014\/15, military units from Buryatia, along with other Russian troops, were deployed to the Donbas war. About one-third of the personnel from Buryatia were ethnic Buryats, and their distinctive Asian appearance blew the cover of the Russian army\u2019s direct involvement in the conflict. Since then, Ukrainian media have labeled any Asian-looking Russian soldiers (Tuvans, Kazakhs, Sakha, Altai, etc.) as \u2018Buryats\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response, the pro-Kremlin youth organization Set<\/em> (\u2018Network\u2019 in Russian) published in July 2015 the notorious video<\/a> in which Buryat teens proclaim themselves \u2018Putin\u2019s militant Buryats\u2019 and state that \u2018Ukrainians are so scared that they see Buryats everywhere\u2019, implying that the evidence for the presence of ethnic Buryat troops in Donbas was \u2018not true\u2019. This is how the \u2018Putin\u2019s militant Buryats\u2019 meme was born. Later, in 2022, one of the participants told prominent Buryat journalist<\/a> Alexandra Garmazhapova that she and other young Buryats were paid to appear in the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is quite possible that those young Buryats genuinely weren\u2019t aware of the Buryat troops fighting in the Donbas war under the guise of the \u2018Donbas militia\u2019; it is telling that the video was filmed in Irkutsk and not in Buryatia. My 2022\/23 research<\/a> has shown that ethnic Buryat troops serving at Buryatia\u2019s military bases at the time of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine were almost exclusively either from Buryatia or from the Transbaikal region (the former Aga Autonomous Okrug), but not from Ust-Orda or Irkutsk. In 2014\/15, the situation was likely the same; it was therefore not these teenagers\u2019 family members or acquaintances who were fighting in Donbas when the video was recorded. Given that official Russian media maintained that it was the \u2018Donbas militia\u2019 and not the Russian army fighting against Ukrainian forces, they might indeed have been unaware of Buryat participation in the conflict, making them ideal candidates for propaganda projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ethnic Buryat population of the Transbaikal region lost its ethnic autonomy in Aga six years prior to the Donbas war. The Aga Buryat Okrug declined economically after losing autonomy. People who had worked in the Autonomous Okrug\u2019s administrative structures lost their jobs. These factors drove Aga Buryat men to seek employment as contract soldiers at Buryatia\u2019s military bases. The dark irony of the situation is that the Kremlin, having taken ethnic autonomy away from these people, then sent them to occupy another country\u2019s territory under the pretext of \u2018defending the language and ethnic autonomy rights of Donbas\u2019 Russian-speaking population\u2019. Unfortunately, at that time too few Buryats noticed anything wrong with this picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n On 24 February 2022, troops of Russia\u2019s Eastern Military District (including Buryatia), along with paratroopers from Pskov, invaded Ukraine\u2019s Kyiv region from the north via the Belarusian border. Months earlier, they had been deployed to Belarus under the pretext of \u2018joint military exercises\u2019 with Belarusian forces in preparation for the invasion. Simultaenously, the 11th Air Assault Brigade from Ulan-Ude, Buryatia, was deployed to Crimea in preparation for the assault on the Zaporizhzhia region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Military units from Buryatia were among the first to cross into Ukraine. As in 2015, the ethnic Buryat troops stood out due to their Asian appearance and made headlines in multiple media reports on the invasion. Soon thereafter, it became evident that Buryatia was responsible for a disproportionately large fraction of Russian casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Russia\u2019s military leadership doesn\u2019t disclose any data on the true scale or ethnic\/regional composition of its war losses, the only sources of such information are obituaries and social media posts about Russian army soldiers killed in action. This type of data<\/a> has been collected by various activist groups, including those collaborating with Mediazona<\/em> and BBC News Russian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do the obituary datasets tell us about Buryatia\u2019s war losses?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n During the first 20 days of the invasion, a staggering 4.1% of Russia\u2019s confirmed war casualties were from Buryatia, though only 0.6% of Russia\u2019s working-age male population lives in the region. Ethnic Buryats (almost exclusively from Buryatia and Transbaikalia) made up 2.5% of Russia\u2019s confirmed death toll over the same period, though Buryats make up only 0.35% of Russia\u2019s population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This dramatic disproportion attracted much media attention and speculation. Some commentators invoked the \u2018warlike savage\u2019 stereotype, claiming Buryats are somehow more belligerent and inclined to go to war. However, since the majority of Buryatia\u2019s population (and its soldiers) are ethnic Russians, such racialised claims do not explain the disproportionate death toll. In reality, the geographic distribution of Russia\u2019s death toll has more to do with the military\u2019s recruitment and deployment policies than with any alleged psychological traits of ethnic groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Buryatia is a border region, heavily militarised but sparsely populated, with many military bases and few employment opportunities for young men. In February 2022, military units from Buryatia \u2013 most notably the Fifth Tank Brigade from Ulan-Ude \u2013 were tasked with some of the deadliest missions, resulting in a high death toll. Forty percent of the Fifth Tank Brigade personnel were Buryats from Buryatia and Aga (Transbaikal region), further skewing the ethnic composition of casualties. The Fifth Tank Brigade being the only specialised tank unit in Russia\u2019s Eastern Military District obviously played a far greater role in this ethnic bias than any cultural stereotype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Irkutsk Buryats were largely unaffected until the so-called \u2018partial mobilisation\u2019 campaign of September\u2013November 2022 (see Table 1). Unlike Buryatia, Irkutsk is not a border region and has no military bases; it also belongs to a different military district (Central, not Eastern). Thus, there were very few Irkutsk Buryats among the 2022 invasion forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Irkutsk Buryats among Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion forces.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Table 1. Confirmed ethnic Buryat casualties by region of residence as of September 2022<\/strong> and March 2025. Source: <\/strong>Inner Asia<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n