One of the world’s oldest continuous communities is ‘breathing its last breath’ as some of its few remaining men die fighting for Russia more than 4,000 miles away in Ukraine.
The Yupik are among the threatened indigenous peoples in the remote far north-east of the federation whose numbers are being further depleted by Vladimir Putin’s war.
The populations were already endangered by competition for precious natural resources and the increasing militarisation of the Arctic involving the US, China and Russia.
Now the Yupik, who straddle far east Russia and Alaska and are also known as Eskimos, are ‘dying off in complete silence’ after an ancestry dating back at least 5,000 years.
Their home region lies much closer to the US state than Ukraine, being 55 miles across the Bering Strait at the closest mainland points.
A representative of the community spoke to Metro in anonymity out of fear of reprisals from Putin’s regime.
The person said that the hunting skills possessed by the men made them valuable to the Kremlin’s war machine and a proportionately significant number have gone to Ukraine to fight.
None have returned for good, other than for short breaks.
‘There are probably 20 boys from my village fighting for Russia, and five have died so far,’ the person said.
‘We had the sad news that one died last week.
‘The Yupik are skilful hunters and providers who live off the land and hunt seals, so when one of the elite hunters volunteers, others follow.
‘If we lose them, it will have a long-lasting effect on a tribe which is already breathing its last breath as a civilization.’
The representative, who belongs to human rights group the International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia (ICIPR), referred to pictures of young men smiling as they lined up in their homeland before going to war in Ukraine.
Showing Yupik and Chukchi men from the Chukotka region, they were taken at a mandatory draft in October 2023.
‘Look at their faces,’ the person said. ‘They are smiling like they are going on vacation and not to war.’
Captured soldier 2,000 miles from home
Recruits from a reindeer herding community around 2,000 miles from the frontline are among those who have been conscripted or promised large payments to join the Kremlin’s war machine.
The fate of those being mobilised, who are mainly drawn from the north, Siberia and far east, was revealed last week by the testimony of a 19-year-old soldier taken prisoner by Ukraine.
The injured man, whose Nenets people traditionally herd reindeer in the remote Yamal Peninsula, surrendered after special forces troops threw grenades into a shattered basement where he and two comrades had taken cover. The teenager, whose name was given as Dmitry Yaptik, said ‘the Nenets population…is dying out’ and others in the community who were mobilised with him had all died.
The Nenets are among around 50 identified groups of indigenous people who live across Russia.
In some regions, generous offers of payment are said to have been promised to new recruits, although another ICIPR member has told Metro that the Russian military is riven with corruption.
Two men from Nenets ethnic minority group who protested about their payments not materialising are said to have been killed by unknown persons, with their bodies showing signs of torture.
Across Russia’s indigenous people as a whole, thousands are thought to have died in Putin’s all-out attack on Ukraine.
In common with other ethnic minority groups, the Yupik men have either been drafted or persuaded by state propaganda to sign up, with potentially catastrophic results for their dwindling communities.
They are considered hunter-providers, as well as family men.
On the battlefield in Ukraine, indigenous people have been used as little more than cannon fodder in the most dangerous parts of the front, according to multiple accounts given by the ICIPR.
‘My people are still rooting for the war and they are not understanding or seeing that we are on the verge of extinction,’ the person said.
‘Their attention is focused on what they hear or see on Russian-controlled media and not on their own survival.’
US commercial whaling in the Bering Sea, along with Russian imperial expansion and resource exploitation, have impacted indigenous populations in Russia and Alaska, the community member said.
One of the darkest times was during the Cold War, when the Arctic close to Alaska was heavily militarised by the Soviets with forced relocations from ancestral villages, according to the researcher.
Ninety-three villages in the far east Chukota region, including fishing and hunting camps, were reduced to just 30 during reforms enacted in the 1950s, the representative told Metro.
‘We are dying out in silence’
The community member’s own upheaval is a case in point.
The refugee left a Yupik ancestral village to claim asylum in the US and expects never to return after settling in Hawaii.
The person’s grandfather’s tribe was declared extinct in 1991.
Even speaking out carries risks, with the ICIPR and others representing indigenous people being deemed ‘extremist’ organisations by the Kremlin.
‘Before outsiders discovered us we were one people across the borders in the Arctic, sharing the same language and same culture, ‘ the person said.
‘But we became isolated a hundred years ago when the Soviets began to colonise us.
‘We have survived on our own but now, at a time when awareness has been raised about polar bears and marine life, one of the ancient Arctic civilizations is dying off in complete silence.’
Arctic power games
While the focus of Russia’s all-out attack on Ukraine is currently on the high-level talks taking place between Washington, London and the Kremlin, the fate of one of the world’s oldest continuous civilizations hangs in the balance as Putin continues to feed his war machine.
Published research traces the Yupik back at least 5,000 years but oral history goes even further.
Since the community member was born, the community has shrunk from a population of around 2,000 to approximately 1,400 people across three villages in Russia.
Militarisation and commercial whaling have taken their toll, with mobilisation for the war in Ukraine coming as an additional burden.
In December, the US Department of Defense said that ‘China is working closely with Russia in its attempt to be seen as an Arctic power’ and that Putin ‘is investing heavily on military and economic strategies in the Arctic.’
Climate change was also cited as a driver for ‘competitor activity’ as the receding ice opens up land and sea access.
‘Invisible war’
‘We have found ourselves living in settlements that are treated as a surface for nuclear and other military activity and the extraction of natural resources,’ the Yupik said.
‘The receding ice exposing Russian borders has also had an impact.
‘Fifty military bases all around the Arctic that were closed by Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the arms race are being re-opened.
‘Russia now operates 25 nuclear ice breakers — the largest number in the world ahead of the US.
‘I’m not an analyst but in my view whoever has the most power over the Arctic has the most power over the world.
‘This is where the largest amount of untapped resources are and where an invisible war is taking place.’
The plight of Russia’s indigenous people during the full-scale attack was thrown into the spotlight earlier this month when a soldier from the Nenets ethnic minority group was captured by Ukraine.
Appearing on video with no obvious signs of duress, Dmitry Yaptik said his community ‘is dying out’ and others from his region who were mobilised with him had all died.
Dmitry Berezhkov, editor-in-chief of the Indigenous Russia website, has lost people close to him after they left to fight in Ukraine.
‘The casualties are having a tragic impact on the entire population of the indigenous people in Russia, which will continue for many generations to come,’ he said.
‘For example, in my own nation, the Itelmen nation, we have only a population of around 2,200 people so even several people dying in this war is a huge loss for us, especially in the northern villages.
‘My cousin has disappeared in the war and a friend I knew for decades has been killed. Every indigenous family has been impacted by the war, in one way or another.’
The United Nations has said the peoples are one of the federation’s ‘most marginalised and vulnerable population groups’ and described the outlawing of their representatives as persecution.
Overall, Russia suffered more than 648,000 personnel killed or wounded since the start of the war in February 2022 up to October last year, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
Away from the glare on the West’s relations with Russia, the eastern Yupik communities stand to slide out of existence with their voice barely registering on the world stage.
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