Undercounted and erased: The world has underestimated how many civilians Russia has killed in Ukraine

Yes, and not only Ukraine. I would like to draw attention also to the Soviets' efforts to erode, or outright kill, Siberian native populations, which happened in the same political context as the Soviet Union's genocide against Ukrainians.

To name only one example, which here on wikipedia is misrepresened:

The Buryats rebelled against the communist rule and collectivization of their herds in 1929. The rebellion was quickly crushed by the Red Army with loss of 35,000 Buryats.

The misrepresenation is in wording it as "crushing a rebellion." There lived around 215k Buryats in Buryatia at the time. 35k, the number reportedly killed when "crushing a ('nationalist') rebellion," is 16.3% of all Buryats in Buryatia at the time.

Later

Fearing Buryat nationalism, Joseph Stalin had more than 10,000 Buryats killed.

Another 5%. Up to over 20% Killing one fifth of a peoples isn't "crowd control," it's genocide.

This is only one peoples of many that the soviets attempted (or succeded) to eradicate. And i'm not even touching on planned famines, dispersion, or using natives as cannon-fodder in wars. This is ongoing even in modern Russia - native Siberian peoples are overrepresented in the invasion forces in Ukraine:

In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, the Buryats have been reported as one of Russia's ethnic minority groups suffering from a disproportionally large casualty rate among Russian forces, reinforcing the processes of assimilation and Russification.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryatia#Ethnic_groups

Again, just a single example of many. And not just Siberia, but no non-Rus peoples in or near Russia is spared from this. It'd be worth several dissertations to go into any detail on all sides of the Soviets' (and now Russia's) colonization and rusification efforts. Of course, i recognize that the West also has very many bodies in its basements, and i don't mean to distract from that, don't get me wrong - it's just that Russia's crimes are much less often talked about, i feel particularly emotionally invested, and Russia (formerly Soviet Russia) is routinely representing itself as oh so anti-nationalist or anti-nazi, even as some of the same policies are ongoing in 2025.

1 comments

Yes, and not only Ukraine. I would like to draw attention also to the Soviets' efforts to erode, or outright kill, Siberian native populations, which happened in the same political context as the Soviet Union's genocide against Ukrainians.
To name only one example, which here on wikipedia is misrepresened:
The Buryats rebelled against the communist rule and collectivization of their herds in 1929. The rebellion was quickly crushed by the Red Army with loss of 35,000 Buryats.
The misrepresenation is in wording it as "crushing a rebellion." There lived around 215k Buryats in Buryatia at the time. 35k, the number reportedly killed when "crushing a ('nationalist') rebellion," is 16.3% of all Buryats in Buryatia at the time.
Later
Fearing Buryat nationalism, Joseph Stalin had more than 10,000 Buryats killed.
Another 5%. Up to over 20% Killing one fifth of a peoples isn't "crowd control," it's genocide.
This is only one peoples of many that the soviets attempted (or succeded) to eradicate. And i'm not even touching on planned famines, dispersion, or using natives as cannon-fodder in wars. This is ongoing even in modern Russia - native Siberian peoples are overrepresented in the invasion forces in Ukraine:
In the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, the Buryats have been reported as one of Russia's ethnic minority groups suffering from a disproportionally large casualty rate among Russian forces, reinforcing the processes of assimilation and Russification.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryatia#Ethnic_groups
Again, just a single example of many. And not just Siberia, but no non-Rus peoples in or near Russia is spared from this. It'd be worth several dissertations to go into any detail on all sides of the Soviets' (and now Russia's) colonization and rusification efforts. Of course, i recognize that the West also has very many bodies in its basements, and i don't mean to distract from that, don't get me wrong - it's just that Russia's crimes are much less often talked about, i feel particularly emotionally invested, and Russia (formerly Soviet Russia) is routinely representing itself as oh so anti-nationalist or anti-nazi, even as some of the same policies are ongoing in 2025.