Razvan Sibii Pens Interview with Buryat Activist and Researcher
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Razvan Sibii, journalism, recently published an interview in the Romanian newspaper Libertatea with Mariya Vyushkova, a Buryat activist working at the University of Notre Dame and founder of the Free Buriatsia Foundation. The foundation works to record the number of Buryats who are captured or die while fighting as part of the Russian army in Ukraine, help Buryats avoid being sent to the front, and combating discrimination against this ethnic group originating from southeastern Siberia.
"Throughout the centuries of interactions with the Russians, the Buryats have always been victims. And their strategy has always been to be harmless – the defense of the weak. The Buryats are the model minority who always try not only not to upset the Russians, but even to show obedience and loyalty," says Vyushkova, when countering recent comments from the Pope that the most vicious fighters in the Russian army are Buryats.