From the Volga to Lake Baikal: the Government of Independent Tatarstan Addresses the Second Congress of Supporters of Buryatia’s Independence

On 19 September 2026 in New York City, two days before the fourth anniversary of the announcement of mobilisation, the Buryat national liberation movement Tusgaar Buryad-Mongolia held the Second Congress of Supporters of Buryatia’s Independence. The congress’s theme was “National Liberation Movements under Russian Imperialism”.

From the opening lines of the programme, the organisers spoke plainly: mobilisation had taken and destroyed the lives of thousands of Buryat-Mongol men, another wave was inevitable, and the congress itself was one step in resisting the Russian regime.

The Government of Independent Tatarstan in Exile was represented at the congress by Kamil Sukaev, Ambassador of the Government of Independent Tatarstan in Exile to the United States. In the closing part of the event, he addressed the participants and conveyed greetings from Prime Minister Rafis Kashapov and the entire Government.

Eight Centuries of Shared History

The ambassador’s address centred on the history that connects Tatars and Buryat-Mongols: Volga Bulgaria, the Golden Horde and the Kazan Khanate.

Behind these names lie more than eight centuries. The earliest known mention of the Buryats appears in The Secret History of the Mongols: they are listed among the “forest peoples” who submitted to Genghis Khan’s eldest son, Jochi, in 1207. Almost three decades later, Jochi’s son Batu led an army to the Volga. In 1236, Volga Bulgaria fell, and its lands became part of the Ulus of Jochi — the state later known as the Golden Horde. Kazan rose to prominence during the Horde era, and in 1438 a descendant of Jochi, Khan Ulugh Muhammad, founded the Kazan Khanate. In this way, one man’s name became part of the history of both Lake Baikal and the Volga.

The two peoples later came to share a common calamity: the same empire. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible’s troops took Kazan; in the seventeenth century, the Tsardom of Muscovy subjugated the Buryat lands around Lake Baikal. Officially, this is called “voluntary accession”: on 1 July, the republic marks the Day of Buryatia’s Voluntary Accession to Russia, and in 2011 its 350th anniversary was celebrated on a grand scale. The congress’s moderator, historian Vladimir Khamutaev, who holds a doctorate in historical sciences, calls things by their names. His book is titled The Bloody Russian Conquest.

The empire even remade names: in 1958, the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and Buryat-Mongols became simply Buryats in official documents. Supporters of Buryat independence had already made international recognition of the illegality of this renaming a goal in the Declaration adopted in New York on 23 July 2023 at the Congress of Buryat Political Organisations for Independence. The creation of the Buryat Independence Committee was announced there as well.

From this shared history, the ambassador drew a shared task: the Tatar and Buryat-Mongol national movements need to move towards closer cooperation in the struggle to liberate their peoples.

Beyond Buryatia

The theme of unity was heard at the congress in more than the address by Independent Tatarstan’s ambassador. One presentation was titled “Ethnic Rights as a Rallying Point for National Movements”. Representatives of Ichkeria, Ingushetia, Sakha and Buryat-Mongolia spoke alongside one another on a panel devoted to the self-determination of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

Greetings to the congress came from former Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga; Ukrainian Member of Parliament and Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mariia Mezentseva-Fedorenko; Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in Exile, Akhmed Zakayev; and human rights defenders from Japan and Southern Mongolia. Robert Hamilton, President of the Delphi Global Research Center and a retired US Army colonel, delivered a presentation on the Kremlin’s politics of force: oppression at home and aggression abroad. The congress took place in a hybrid format, with participants joining online from San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles.

A separate session was devoted to the Buryat language. The presentation by Baldan Lama (Baldan Bazarov), former abbot of the Kyren Datsan, was titled “Хүнэй сэдьхэл хэлэ бэшэгһээ шалтагаантай” — “A person’s soul depends on the language they speak”. Supporters of independence describe what is happening to the Buryat language in direct terms: the 2023 declaration refers to “acts of linguicide” in 1973 and 2014. For Tatars, this issue is painfully familiar: in 2017, Tatar ceased to be a compulsory subject in Tatarstan’s schools.

The congress concluded with the adoption of a resolution.

The Price of Speaking Openly

The congress programme ended with a section rarely found at an ordinary conference: a legal notice. The organisers warned candidly that participants and guests might include people whom the Russian authorities had designated as “foreign agents”, “extremists” and “terrorists”. For those living in Russia or planning to return there, even communicating with them publicly could lead to persecution.

This was no excess of caution. In 2024, the Russian authorities designated both the Tusgaar Buryad-Mongolia movement and the Buryat Independence Committee first as “extremist” and later as “terrorist” organisations. Both were included in a list of 172 national, human rights and decolonial organisations and media outlets. Russia’s Criminal Code provides for up to 20 years’ imprisonment for participation in a “terrorist organisation”.

One of the congress moderators knows that price firsthand. Aset Sabb, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, moderated the section on indigenous peoples, war and the international context and also took part in the panel on self-determination. In April, a court in Grozny designated the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria itself a “terrorist organisation”. On 25 August, Rosfinmonitoring added Aset Sabb to its register as a person accused under a “terrorism” article, and on 16 September, three days before the congress, the FSB Directorate for Chechnya placed her on a wanted list. By the time she spoke at the congress, she was already officially wanted by the Russian authorities.

On 21 September, two days after the congress, Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia, presented the report “Nowhere Is Safe” to the UN Human Rights Council, describing how the Kremlin pursues its critics abroad. Indigenous peoples’ rights defenders are named among those at heightened risk. The rapporteur separately examines Law No. 284-FZ, adopted in August. For Russian citizens abroad who have been penalised for offences including “calls to violate territorial integrity”, it freezes money and property and blocks access to consular services, including the issuance of passports. Katzarova calls this civil death. Her conclusion: “Leaving Russia does not mean leaving Russian repression behind.”

“We Will Visit One Another”

As envisioned by its organisers, the congress brought together activists, human rights defenders and all “friends of the idea of a free and independent Buryatia”. Kamil Sukaev ended his address by saying that this friendship would not end when the struggle was over:

“After gaining independence, we will certainly be good friends and will visit one another.”

There is no grandiloquence in this phrase, and that is precisely why it says more than many declarations. Independence is needed neither for new hostility nor to exchange one master for another, but for the normal life of free peoples who decide for themselves whom to befriend. Eight centuries ago, the Volga and Lake Baikal were linked by a single state; later, they shared the same imperial bondage. The ambassador described the next chapter of this history simply: free peoples who visit one another.