“You Russians have nothing to worry about. Caucasians will do anything” Dagestan is the record holder for the number of soldiers’ coffins from Ukraine. Here is what they think about it in the republic itself. Reporting by Vladimir Sevrinovsky [Translation in the comments]

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  1. DeepL translation:

    Dagestan is one of the Russian regions where young men not only do not try to avoid military service, but even pay bribes to get there. Because of the quotas, only a small part of all the conscripts of the republic are sworn in for each conscription. And in Dagestan, where there is a huge unemployment rate, military service, conscription and then contract service is the most important social elevator. Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, the recruitment of contract soldiers has been going on here, and some of them have already managed to return home in coffins. The exact number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine is unknown – it ranges from 1,351 (this data from the Russian Ministry of Defense dated March 25, since then the official data have not been updated) to 19,000 according to the Ukrainian side. The death toll of soldiers from Dagestan may already be more than a hundred. At the request of Meduza, Vladimir Sevrinovsky traveled to Makhachkala and the mountain villages of the republic to find out how the residents of Dagestan mourn their sons and what they think about the war.

    “We are servile people.”
    “I’ve been afraid of being addressed as ‘brother,'” a teacher from a village in Dagestan, who asked to remain anonymous, explained to Meduza. – If someone suddenly comes up and says: ‘Brother! – then that means, I thought, he wants to rob me or slyly trick me. But now, hearing the phrase “brotherly people” once again, I realized that the same laws apply to words as to words.
    Recently students in one class drew the letter Z on the blackboard and defiantly stopped doing assignments. Having received low marks, they denounced to the class teacher that the teacher had allegedly taken revenge on them for their “patriotism”, he told the Meduza. The teacher was consoled by the fact that in the evening the other teenagers came to his house, and he says that they “see everything and understand everything.
    The students, who drew a letter Z on the blackboard, told the teacher that Putin is the power, Russia will soon be victorious, and that as an enemy of the people he will be jailed for 15 years, and for some reason they added: “Like Navalny. He wanted to quit, he told Meduza, but then he changed his mind. In addition to this class, there are other children.
    The war has split Dagestani society. Many, like everywhere else in the country, supported the “fight against fascism.” In the center of Makhachkala, on Rasul Gamzatov Avenue, a slogan: “For Peace!” was hung on the building of the Russian Theater. Underneath there is a poster of a joint performance by two ensembles: “Donbass” and the newly renamed “LeZginka”. The buses with the same letter on the board pass by, but there are almost no private cars with it.
    “A colleague at the meeting asked if we would put this sign, the letter Z, on our printed products,” the director of a national cultural institution told the Meduza. – I, naturally, refused and in turn asked her why. “Well, we were recommended, we’re forced people…”.
    “Something has to be done,” she tells the Meduza reporter. – All these tales that culture is outside of politics are criminal. You can’t be out of politics when these things happen in the country. We should try not to get caught up in these awful articles [about censorship] and not put people in danger, but it is impossible to remain silent. Even if not directly, we must talk about what’s going on.
    Along with sports, military service is one of the main social elevators in a subsidized republic. The conscription of conscripts in Dagestan is limited by quotas, and even bribes are paid for their service. In the spring conscription of 2021, the Defense Ministry reported about 3,000 conscripts (the total number of conscripts in 2020 was estimated at 60,000). However, in March 2022, the Dagestani military registration and enlistment offices started actively recruiting contract servicemen to participate in the “special operation. They were offered salaries ranging from 177,000 rubles for a private (gunner) to 215,000 for a warrant officer (petty officer). The average salary in the republic was a little over 32 thousand rubles, and the unemployment rate was over 15% in 2021 (with the Russian average of just over 4% by the end of the year).
    There is conflicting information about the success of the recruitment. According to the March 18 report of RIA Dagestan, “over the past week, the military enlistment office of Dagestan concluded more than 300 short-term military service contracts. However, the Babayurtovsky district military registration and enlistment office informed the Chernovik correspondent that enlistment for the “special operation” was open until March 10 and that no one responded. The material of March 11 quotes a duty officer from the republican military registration and enlistment office as saying that enlistment of contract servicemen continues, but not to Ukraine.
    From the very first days of the invasion of Ukraine, Dagestani families received death notices. Two obituaries alone, published in the Chernovik newspaper on March 11 and 18, listed 35 people. According to Kavkaz.Realii, by March 23 at least 60 residents of the republic had been killed in the war. There are already more than a hundred names of soldiers from Dagestan killed in Ukraine in unofficial lists compiled on the basis of media reports and social networks. According to this indicator, Dagestan is even far ahead of Buryatia, the country’s second-best republic.
    Back in the second half of March, the Dagestani newspaper Chernovik wrote about the parents of soldiers from the republic who could not find their sons. Information about hospitals allegedly overflowing with wounded Dagestani soldiers is spreading on messengers, as the Meduza correspondent ascertained. “One relative with serious shrapnel wounds, another was killed,” Makhachkala resident Akhmed (name changed) wrote on social media. – These are the intermediate results of an absolutely stupid massacre on someone else’s land.”

  2. Idiots. They really think Russians have any respect for them. Such delusions. Russians certainly think of themselves as superior to all their vassals. Those dumb fucks are just getting used as cannon fodder by Kremlin.

  4. I appreciate hearing about how this war has impacted communities on all sides. When rhetoric becomes a weapon against truth, it’s helpful to keep humanity in the forefront whenever possible. Thank you for sharing the translation.

  5. The most useful idiots. Love of death that rivals jihadists . Imagine being born under putin and dying because of putin. And being proud of it

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