As a fellow victim of totalitarianism, Ukraine knows what they are up against.“We wanted to attract the attention of Europe and the world to the defense of national and civil rights of the peoples of the Idel Ural republics.”
The peoples are located only 5000 kilometers from Kharkiv and thus are very much part of Europe. In response, Hopko says, Moscow has sanctioned her.Ukraine “must show solidarity with the peoples of the republics of Ideal Ural” because “they are actively struggling for their languages and each of them is attempting to preserve its national identity.”
And so she says she is not at all surprised that Moscow has put her on the list. Of course, she acknowledges, her other positions, including active defense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity also likely played a role and her authorship of the law on de-communization and de-Sovietization of Ukraine. But clearly any talk about Russia’s oppression of the nations within its borders is what angers Moscow most of all.“For the Kremlin, this call to the international community to defend the peoples of the Middle Volga was the last straw” as far as its view of her was concerned.
Further Reading:
- Free Idel-Ural Movement takes shape in Kyiv
- Left-wing radicals in Urals see Russia on verge of a revolution like 1991
- By 2050, eight Russian regions will be submerged under water, Urals researchers say
- US, Ukraine said behind efforts to split Russia by reviving Urals Republic
- ‘If a bourgeois revolution is to start in Russia, it will begin with Tatarstan,’ Kazan historian says
- Non-Russian nations of Russia to defend themselves from Putin because their elites won’t
