44 New Names: Moscow Decides — Tatarstan Buries
In one week, 44 more natives of Tatarstan were added to the list of identified war dead. The decision to wage war was made in the Kremlin. Our cities and villages pay the bill. This is colonial arithmetic — and only independence can stop it.
In one week, 44 more natives of Tatarstan were added to the list of identified war dead. The decision to wage war was made in the Kremlin. Our cities and villages pay the bill. This is colonial arithmetic — and only independence can stop it.
Between August 10 and 16, journalists at Idel.Realii identified the names of another 416 people from the Volga region who died in the war against Ukraine. Forty-four of them were natives of Tatarstan. Across the regions of the Volga Federal District and Astrakhan Region, at least 59,269 deaths have now been confirmed.
Let us be precise — precision is our weapon. Forty-four means newly identified names, not people who necessarily died during that week: the empire hides news of deaths for months, and many of these people died back in 2024–2025. So much the worse for Moscow. Even its machinery of silence cannot cope: the names still surface. Every week. For years.
Colonial arithmetic
Tatarstan did not declare this war and cannot stop it: the republic has been completely stripped of authority over questions of war and peace. Yet it is here that the war takes people, money, factories and funerals. This is the oldest formula of any empire: decisions are made in the metropolis — coffins travel to the colonies.
Forty-four names are a school classroom. A factory shift. A village street. Behind every name is a family in Arsk, Aznakayevo, Chelny or Kazan to whom the state did not even bother to tell the truth in time.
Sovereignty is the right to say “no”
Sovereignty does not begin with flags and anthems. It begins with one single power: deciding for ourselves whether we go to war. As long as Moscow decides this, the lists will keep growing. An independent Tatarstan is not a slogan. It is the only method known to history for stopping the payment of someone else’s military bills with our own children.
Empires know how to forget. We do not. We will continue this count, name by name, until the day there is no one left to add to it.