Ukraine war: The Russian region with high casualties where an army contract is big money
Buryatia feels like it is a world away from war in Europe.
It is a different Russia. Vast snowy plains and Buddhist temples, closer at first glance to Mongolia next door than it is to Moscow, five time zones away.
But the motifs of Russia’s war in Ukraine are everywhere.
A huge Z and V stuck to the side of an apartment building we pass. Another giant V sign on the side of the world’s largest Lenin’s head in the centre of the regional capital, Ulan-Ude.
Along the sides of the roads, billboards commemorating some of the men Buryatia has lost this past year with the dates they were killed and the words: “We love, we remember, we mourn.”
We meet a young man just back from Kazakhstan where he’d gone to escape the draft.
He’d been there for two months but wasn’t sure how to keep financing himself.
“This is a poor, subsidised region,” he says.
“People here live on loans in order to survive and the propaganda tells them all the time that they will make money if they go and fight.”
Buryatia is on Mongolia’s doorstep
An army contract is big money in Buryatia which is perhaps why, alongside enthusiastic recruitment policies, it has suffered a disproportionately high casualty rate in this war.
The numbers are hard to verify but there does appear to be some correlation between poor, ethnic minority regions like Buryatia or Dagestan, and high casualty counts.
We spoke to a woman called Polina, not her real name, whose two nephews had signed up for the army and were on what they thought were just training exercises in Belarus when Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.
After a few weeks, both men asked to terminate their contracts but they were turned down.
Polina says one was placed in custody and the other was threatened with execution.
She says: “The commander actually put a gun to his head. And my nephew said ‘Okay, do it! I’d rather die now than go back, where they’ll either make me an invalid or I’ll have to kill someone’.”
He was eventually allowed to go home.
‘Not all of us are bloodthirsty’
In the early months of the war, ethnic Buryats were widely accused across Ukrainian social media of alleged atrocities, especially in relation to Bucha.
The NGO Free Buryatia Foundation, currently based outside of Russia, describes the “Buryats in Bucha” as the “biggest myth of the war” and has endeavoured to prove via open source investigations that ethnic Buryats were unfairly singled out as culpable for war crimes, in part because of their distinctive ethnicity.
Polina can’t accept the allegations. “I want the world to know that not all Buryats support the war,” she says.
“Not all of us are bloodthirsty, we’re not bloodthirsty at all. We were made to look like that.”
It is difficult to find people who’ll speak to Western media here. It is much safer to stay quiet. We were on our way to interview a man who had lost 20 friends in the war when his wife sent us a message.
Consequences for posting on social media
“State repressions are already under way,” she wrote.
“Even for a repost on a social network, young people are imprisoned/tried/fined. I can’t take that risk. My great-grandfather was repressed only because of the suspicions of the government and it led to nothing good for the family.”
She refused to let him do the interview.
Which is why Elena Pavlova is so remarkably brave. She lives in Ulan-Ude. We came across her because she had written a post on social media declaring herself categorically opposed to the war.
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“It seems to me that people in Russia do not believe in themselves,” Ms Pavlova says.
“There are many who support Putin and believe that without him, the country will fall apart. And everyone just gives up.”
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The airport in Ulan-Ude
She has considered leaving the country, like the hundreds of thousands of others who feel its values no longer reflect their own. But she doesn’t know how she would fund herself or her young daughter.
She says when the war started she had more faith in the Russian people but that she has lost that completely.
“Let’s say we keep staying silent. How do we keep living in this country then? How do we live in these circumstances? Among these people? I don’t know.”
An audacious Ukrainian drone attack against multiple airbases across Russia is a humiliating security breach for Vladimir Putin that will doubtless trigger a furious response.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers have described the drone assault – which Ukrainian security sources said hit more than 40 Russian warplanes – as “Russia’s Pearl Harbor” in reference to the Japanese attack against the US in 1941 that prompted Washington to enter the Second World War.
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The Ukrainian operation – which used small drones smuggled into Russia, hidden in mobile sheds and launched off the back of trucks – also demonstrated how technology and imagination have transformed the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to seriously hurt its far more powerful opponent.
Moscow will have to retaliate, with speculation already appearing online about whether President Putin will again threaten the use of nuclear weapons.
“We hope that the response will be the same as the US response to the attack on their Pearl Harbor or even harsher,” military blogger Roman Alekhin wrote on his Telegram channel.
Codenamed ‘Spider’s Web’, the mission on Sunday was the culmination of one and a half years of planning, according to a security source.
In that time, Ukraine’s secret service smuggled first-person view (FPV) drones into Russia, sources with knowledge of the operation said.
Flat-pack, garden-office style sheds were also secretly transported into the country.
The drones were hidden in truck containers. Pic: SBU Security Service
The oblong sheds were then built and drones were hidden inside, before the containers were put on the back of trucks and driven to within range of their respective targets.
At a chosen time, doors on the roofs of the huts were opened remotely and the drones were flown out. Each was armed with a bomb that was flown into the airfields, with videos released by the security service that purportedly showed them blasting into Russian aircraft.
These drones were used to destroy Russian bomber aircraft. Pic: SBU Security Service
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Among the targets were Tu-95 and Tu-22 bomber aircraft that can launch cruise missiles, according to the Ukrainian side. An A-50 airborne early warning aircraft was also allegedly hit. This is a valuable platform that is used to command and control operations.
The use of such simple technology to destroy multi-million-pound aircraft will be watched with concern by governments around the world.
Suddenly, every single military base, airfield and warship will appear that little bit more vulnerable if any truck nearby could be loaded with killer drones.
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The most immediate focus, though, will be on how Mr Putin responds.
Previous attacks by Ukraine inside Russia have triggered retaliatory strikes and increasingly threatening rhetoric from the Kremlin.
But this latest operation is one of the biggest and most significant, and comes on the eve of a new round of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv that are meant to take place in Turkey. It is not clear if that will still happen.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for the two sides to make peace but Russia has only escalated its war.
Ukraine clearly felt it had nothing to lose but to also go on the attack.
Two people are dead and nearly 560 people were arrested after disorder broke out in France following Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the Champions League final, the French interior ministry has said.
The ministry added 192 people were injured and there were 692 fires, including 264 involving vehicles.
A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death in the city of Dax during a PSG street party after Saturday night’s final in Munich, the national police service said.
The second person killed was a man who was hit by a car while riding a scooter during PSG celebrations, the interior minister’s office said.
Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez has said the man was in his 20s and although the incident is still being investigated, it appears his death was linked to the disorder.
Meanwhile, French authorities have reported that a police officer is in a coma following the clashes.
A burning bike on the Champs Elysees during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
The officer had been hit by a firecracker that emerged from a crowd of supporters in Coutances in the Manche department of northwestern France, according to reports in the country.
Initial investigations reportedly suggest the incident was accidental and the police officer was not deliberately targeted.
The perpetrator has not been identified.
A man walks past teargas during incidents after the Champions League final soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan. Pic: AP
A burning bike on the Champs Elysees during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
The interior ministry earlier said 22 security forces workers were injured during the chaos – including 18 who were injured in Paris, along with seven firefighters.
In a news conference today, Mr Nuñez said only nine of the force’s officers had been injured in the French capital.
He added that fireworks were directed at police and firefighters were attacked while responding to car fires.
There were 559 arrests across the country during the disorder, including 491 in Paris. Of those detained across the country, 320 were taken into police custody – with 254 in the French capital.
Mr Nuñez said although most people wanted to celebrate PSG’s win, some only wanted to get involved in fights with police.
He also said the force is only at “half-time” in its response because the PSG team will be celebrating their Champions League victory on the Champs Élysées later today.
Police in Paris during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
Police in Paris during the disorder. Pic: Reuters
Mr Nuñez said that the police presence and military presence in Paris will be increased on the ground for the parade.
It comes after flares and fireworks were set off in the French capital after PSG beat Inter Milan 5-0 in Munich – the biggest ever victory in a Champions League final.
Around 5,400 police were deployed across Paris after the game, with officers using tear gas and pepper spray on the Champs Élysées.
Pic: AP
Pic: AP
At the top of the Champs Élysées, a water cannon was used to protect the Place de l’Etoile, near the landmark Arc de Triomphe.
Police said a large crowd not watching the match tried to push through a barrier to make contact with officers.
Some 131 arrests were made, including 30 who broke into a shoe shop on the Champs Élysées.
Police have said a total of four shops, including a car dealership and a barbers, were targeted during the disorder in Paris.
Two cars were set alight close to Parc des Princes, police said.
PSG forward Ousmane Dembélé appealed for calm in a post-match interview with Canal+, saying: “Let’s celebrate this but not tear everything up in Paris.”
Pics: AP
After the final played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, thousands of supporters also tried to rush the field.
Police lined up in front of the PSG end of the stadium at the final whistle, but struggled to contain the fans for several minutes when they came down from the stands following the trophy presentation.
Pics: AP
Désiré Doué, the 19-year-old who scored two goals and assisted one in the final, said after the game: “I don’t have words. But what I can say is, ‘Thank you Paris,’ we did it.”
Despite being a supporter of PSG’s rivals Olympique de Marseille, French President Emmanuel Macron also said on social media: “A glorious day for PSG!
“Bravo, we are all proud. Paris, the capital of Europe this evening.”
Mr Macron’s office said the president would receive the players at the Elysee Palace on Sunday.
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Three patients have been killed and dozens of other people were reportedly injured after a fire at a hospital in Germany.
The blaze broke out in a room in the geriatric ward of the Marienkrankenhaus early on Sunday.
It started on the ground floor and spread to the level above, with smoke affecting much of the four-storey building in the city of Hamburg.
Firefighters were alerted soon after midnight.
They said they found several patients calling for help from windows, and some people were rescued using ladders.
Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
Three adults died and more than 30 were injured in the fire, the German news agency dpa said.
One of the injured is in a life-threatening condition, while 18 have serious injuries and 15 have minor injuries, the agency added.
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Part of the building had to be evacuated, though the wounded were mostly treated at the hospital.
Two injured people were taken to other nearby clinics.
The blaze was put out within about 20 minutes. The cause is not yet known.
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