The Siberian Battalion targets Putin from the trenches of Ukraine

There are three Russian armed groups that fight in the Ukrainian ranks. They are opponents of Vladimir Putin who consider that the time to confront him politically has ended. Of these, the units that have been in the war the longest are the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), from the extreme right, and the Freedom Legion of Russia, with a liberal ideology close to the theses of Alexei Navalny, who died this February in a prison. Russian. The last organization to break in was the Siberian Battalion. Unlike the other two units, its soldiers are part of the Ukrainian International Legion. And also, unlike them, their objective is to decentralize Russia's power in favor of the regions and "liberate" their ethnic minorities.

Control is the code name of one of the oldest soldiers in the Siberian Battalion. He does not specify his age, but says he is over 40 years old. He already fought as a volunteer for Ukraine in the 2014 war against pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. He was born in Moscow, like his parents, but he is Tatar: his grandparents were deported by the Soviet Union from the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Control's hobby is the story. He knows and explains the past of each building that surrounds the kyiv park where the interview with EL PAÍS takes place: “If you want to know what the future holds for you, you must study history. “If you study it, you see that this war was going to happen.”

Control establishes a parallel between Crimea and Ukraine with Spain and Catalonia. He believes that a model to follow is that of self-government and defense of the Catalan identity that is developing in Spain. Johnny, the code name of a Control comrade in arms, adds that the Siberian Battalion fights for “the liberation” of the national minorities of the Russian Federation and for their country to have a confederate model or, at least, that of USA.

Johnny, originally from St. Petersburg, joined the Siberian Battalion in October 2023 after leaving Russia a year earlier. That October saw the battalion's first official action on the war front. At the beginning of their activity in Ukraine they had 60 volunteers, now they say there are many more. Representatives of the group assured Euronews in January that their goal was to have 300 combatants. None of the three Russian armed groups fighting with kyiv want to reveal how many people they comprise, but the global figure may be slightly more than a thousand, according to estimates by various media outlets.

Johnny came to the battalion through the mediation of the Civic Council, a political entity of Russian opponents established in Poland. This entity had collaborated with the RDK, but in the summer of 2023 they broke off their relations due to the ultranationalist ideology of that armed group. The Russians who now contact the Civic Council to fight with Ukraine are directed to the Siberian Battalion.

The Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion have fought side by side against Kremlin troops, but politically they are opposing entities. The founder of the Siberian Battalion, Vladislav Amosov, wanted to enlist in the RDK, but they rejected him for not being Slavic, according to this newspaper in June 2023. Amosov is a retired military officer of Yakut ethnicity. Other fighters from national minorities decided from then on to join the Siberian Battalion.

Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.

Subscribe

The political differences between the three groups were made clear at a joint press conference they gave last March in kyiv. The founder of the RDK, Denis Kapustin, pointed to the Siberian Battalion as an example of the divergences between them. Jolod, representative of this group at the conference, took the floor to confirm that the objective that unites them is the overthrow of Putin, but that they aspire to the decentralization of power from Moscow and the self-determination of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

Control cites four ethnic minorities that, in its opinion, are being especially mistreated by Putin to Russify their territories: the Yakuts, the Chubassians, the Buryats and the Evenkis. Many of those recruited by the Russian army to fight in Ukraine come from these nationalities, in order to eliminate its population, according to Control. And what do they feel when one of these fellow Russian citizens is killed in combat? Aren't they also victims? Johnny reacts to the question quickly, without hesitation: “What do I feel? I feel the recoil of the rifle against my shoulder. Even if he were a neighbor from my neighborhood, if he came to invade another country, I would still kill him.” “There is always an option not to lower our heads, like we did,” he adds.

Target Putin's circle

The Razumkov Center, a Ukrainian institution for political and security studies, published a demographic study on April 10 in which 25% of respondents believed that the war could only end with the collapse of Russia. The men of the Siberian Battalion take it for granted. “This war cannot end on the front, because Putin will continue to send 300,000 soldiers and 300,000 more, he doesn't care about their lives, he will send them until he conquers what he wants,” explains Johnny. “This war will end in Moscow, when we put an end to Putin and his power circle,” he emphasizes. For him, there has to be a “change in tactics” to carry out operations on Russian soil, to liquidate the president's trusted men. “If they liquidate opponents in Europe, why can't we do the same in Russia?” Control asks.

Asked about the possibility that the European Union and the United States view these actions unfavorably, the Siberian Battalion prefers not to comment, but both Control and Johnny are convinced that a world war has already begun between Western democracies and authoritarian countries. such as Russia, Iran, China or North Korea.

Politics no longer has any place in Russia, they say. The Civic Council can provide leaders for a revolution, like the Bolshevik leaders who returned from exile in Europe to overthrow the tsar, “but the troops are inside the country,” Control theorizes. The death of Navalny, a character who, according to him, was not liked due to his centralist and authoritarian vision of Russia, “is proof that politics is over.” “Putin bases his power on violence, and you can only confront this force with greater force,” emphasizes the veteran of the Siberian Battalion.

_