At the end of 2025, a series of searches and detentions of activists involved in defending the rights of Indigenous small-numbered peoples took place in several regions of Russia. Selkup activist Daria Egereva and another environmental activist, whose name has not been disclosed, were placed in pre-trial detention. Investigators link them to Aborigen Forum, an organisation designated in Russia as extremist and terrorist, which ceased its activities in 2024. The activists themselves believe that the persecution is connected to their speeches at United Nations forums.
A four-hour “inspection” at a Sámi activist’s home
On the night of 17 December, Valentina Sovkina, a 62-year-old Sámi activist from the Murmansk region, could not sleep — “as if there was a premonition,” she recalls in a conversation with Vot Tak. At around 9 a.m., Valentina was woken by a knock at the door. She approached the door without her glasses and looked through the peephole. The face seemed familiar to her, although it was blurred. She thought it was someone she knew. When she opened the door, seven people entered the apartment.
“Five men and two women. Three of them in masks. They did not introduce themselves right away. They rushed in and the first thing they said was, ‘Quickly, the devices,’” Valentina Sovkina told Vot Tak.
She tried to stop them and to find out who they were and why they had come. They showed her an official order. Without her glasses, Valentina cannot see well, so she asked them to wait while she put them on. At that moment, the officers were already following her into the room. Her glasses were lying next to her phone. As soon as Valentina picked them up, the phone immediately ended up in the hands of the security officers. A second phone was lying under her pillow; it was taken as well. The officers asked the woman for the phone access codes three times. Each time, she refused to provide them.
“They said, ‘If you don’t give the code, it means you have something to hide.’ And I replied, ‘Of course I do. Personal correspondence. Photos that I send to my husband,’” Valentina says.
Valentina told the officers that she had the right to call a lawyer. In response, she was told that “this is not a search, but an inspection.”
The “inspection” lasted almost four hours. The officers went through the rooms, sorting through documents, books, and folders, expressing surprise at how many there were. Valentina asked them several times directly, “What are you looking for?” The answer was always the same: “We’re just looking.” In addition to Valentina’s phones, the officers took her old netbook and a desktop computer.
Valentina Sovkina is one of the most well-known representatives of the Sámi movement on the Kola Peninsula. The Sámi are a small Indigenous Finno-Ugric people, with a total population estimated at between 80,000 and 100,000 people. According to Sámi activists, 1,599 of them live in Russia, on the territory of the Kola Peninsula.
During the Stalin period, 118 representatives of the Sámi people were subjected to repression on the Kola Peninsula (out of around 2,000 who lived there at the time). Fifty of them were executed; many died during interrogations or disappeared without a trace.
One of the most notorious cases was the criminal investigation known as the “Sámi conspiracy” in 1938. In the course of this case, 15 people were shot and 13 were sent to forced labour camps.
For many years, Valentina Sovkina publicly spoke about the rights of the Sámi of the Kola Peninsula, addressed international forums, and criticised the industrial development of ancestral territories without the consent of local communities. In 2022, Sovkina became a member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues representing the Russian Federation. Her term in this position was due to end in December 2025.
However, before it expired, on 19 December—two days after the searches—Valentina left Russia to join her husband in Norway. She says the decision came to her almost instinctively.
“If I had stayed, anything could have happened. If I leave, at least I will have the opportunity to speak,” Valentina explains.
During the journey, she kept returning to the same thought: history is repeating itself.
Searches and detentions of UN forum participants
In December, Russian law enforcement officers came not only to Valentina. Large-scale searches were carried out at the homes of activists working on Indigenous Peoples’ rights in Moscow, St Petersburg, the Murmansk, Tomsk and Kemerovo regions, Altai and Krasnoyarsk Krais, and the Republics of Altai and Sakha.
On 17 December, police detained at least 17 representatives of Indigenous small-numbered peoples from the Republics of Altai and Sakha, the Tomsk, Murmansk and Kemerovo regions, as well as Krasnoyarsk Krai. Most of them were released the same day. Two women activists were placed in custody.
According to an anonymous source quoted by Vot Tak, everyone visited by law enforcement that day had for many years been involved in defending the rights of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East.
“These people openly spoke about the fact that the lands on which their peoples have lived for centuries are being polluted as a result of coal mining and oil spills, that it is becoming increasingly difficult for communities to engage in hunting and fishing, and that access to ancestral lands is becoming more restricted every year. They spoke about the extinction of Indigenous languages, the closure of rural schools, and the transmission of traditions to children. This was open and peaceful activity,” the anonymous source told Vot Tak.
As a representative of Siberian activists told Sibir.Realii, all 17 detainees had in one way or another participated in a UN environmental forum. A Vot Tak source familiar with the situation confirms this information and уточняет that it was not limited to an environmental forum: many of those detained had also taken part in other UN platforms and international meetings where they raised issues related to Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the protection of their territories. The names of most of the activists who drew the attention of law enforcement have not been disclosed.
It is known that the list included Aleksei Chispiyakov, a Shor activist from the Kemerovo region, who in the spring of 2025 spoke at the United Nations about the destruction of the taiga and the discrimination faced by his people in Kuzbass. Officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) met him as he was leaving his home and presented search warrants. During the search, the activist’s computer and mobile phones were seized, without him being informed of the opening of a criminal case or of his procedural status.
Among those arrested was an activist from Tomsk and a representative of the Indigenous Selkup people, Daria Egereva. She is also connected to United Nations activities: the activist is a member of a United Nations coordinating body on Indigenous Peoples’ issues. One month before her detention, Egereva spoke at the COP30 conference, where she described dangerous climate changes caused by the actions of Russian state-owned enterprises and authorities, which are destroying the way of life of Indigenous small-numbered peoples.
According to the official version, Daria Egereva, like the second detained activist, is accused of links to the organisation Aborigen Forum, which has been designated in Russia as terrorist and extremist. On 18 December, a court ordered Egereva to be held in custody.
How “Indigenous activists” became “extremists”
Aborigen Forum was an informal association of experts and activists from Indigenous small-numbered peoples from 14 regions of the North, Siberia and the Far East. Its participants were engaged in defending Indigenous rights, preserving traditional ways of life, and addressing environmental and climate issues.
Aborigen Forum emerged as a response to the transformation of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East (RAIPON). After its 2013 congress, State Duma deputy Grigory Ledkov became the association’s president. Under his leadership, the association ceased to function as an independent human rights organisation and effectively turned into a government department responsible for managing Indigenous Peoples.
In 2024, the media outlets Verstka and 7×7, together with the NGO Arktida, published a joint investigation reporting that the leadership of the Association of Indigenous Peoples was linked to the FSB, and that the organisation was financed by Norilsk Nickel and LUKOIL. The same information was shared with Vot Tak on condition of anonymity by a representative of the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia (ICIPR).
“In recent years, Russia has increasingly sent ‘trained’ and government-loyal representatives of Indigenous Peoples to UN meetings. They speak about how supposedly well Indigenous Peoples live and how successfully they cooperate with the state. These trips are often funded from the state budget or by industrial companies that extract resources in Indigenous territories and cause environmental damage,” the source explained.
After the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, RAIPON publicly supported the war. Later, the organisation took part in the persecution of colleagues who opposed the attack on the neighbouring country, asking the Prosecutor General’s Office to check them for extremist activity — including Aborigen Forum.
In the summer of 2024, the Russian Ministry of Justice added Aborigen Forum to the register of extremist organisations, designating it as a “structural unit” of the so-called Anti-Russian Separatist Movement. The existence of this “movement” has not been publicly confirmed.
In November of the same year, the Supreme Court designated the Forum of Free States of Post-Russia as a terrorist organisation. The list of the forum’s “subdivisions” included 172 organisations, many of which worked to support Indigenous Peoples, including Aborigen Forum. Following these decisions, in the summer of 2024, the forum ceased its activities and dissolved itself.
Polina Shandrak