I received this piece of propaganda featuring fallen Shor people. The video shows 21 Shor people representatives. The Shors are a small Indigenous people (of Siberia), with only about 10,000 remaining. I know that the actual number of the dead and missing is even higher. It is extremely painful to me that members of my people, including my own relatives, have become accomplices in the crimes committed by the state called Russia.
These Shors died for the so-called “Russian world.”
I want to believe that it isn’t true
I want to believe that it isn’t true:
It wasn’t you who paraded for fascism,
It wasn’t you who twisted your fingers into a Z,
It wasn’t you who murdered so many peaceful children,
It wasn’t you who prayed to propaganda until nightfall,
It is not you who are tearing our hearts to shreds.
How I want to believe, to forgive, to forget…
But with what can innocent blood be redeemed?
How I want to believe that all this is a dream…
Except that we will not bring back the dead.
Yana Tannagasheva, Member of ICIPR, April 24, 2025 — Source
Note from iR: The editorial board of Indigenous Russia opposes the war in Ukraine and considers members of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Russian Far East who died in the war to be war criminals. Additional materials on casualties among Indigenous peoples from the RSFN and Far East can be found here: “War and Indigenous Peoples of Russia: Challenges of Statistical Analysis.” (in Russian)