Frontline report: Russia’s empire starts to crack as separatist fires quietly begin flickering from Siberia to the Caucasus

Today, there are important updates from the Russian Federation.

Here, separatism, once whispered in exile or suppressed by force, is now turning into open resistance and a threat to the stability of the state. With the effect of the war increasingly reaching Russians at home, these sentiments start to grow, as the Ukrainian intelligence directorate seeks to stoke the fires even further.

Yakutia’s long-suppressed anger moves toward defiance

In Yakutia or the Sakha Republic, Russia’s largest republic spanning over three million square kilometers in Siberia, separatist sentiment has evolved into a movement of identity, survival, and now defiance.

Long treated as Moscow’s colony, Yakutia generates billions in diamonds, gold, and gas, yet its people remain among Russia’s poorest, living amid environmental devastation and neglect. Anger has been brewing for years, but the war in Ukraine has lit the fuse. Thousands of young Yakuts have died fighting for Russia’s ambitions, suffering 40 times more casualties than soldiers from the Moscow district, all while their homeland continues to be plundered.

In September 2025, local deputy Alexander Ivanov crossed the final line by openly discussing Yakutia’s need to separate from Russia during an interview in Türkiye. He called on Yakuts not to fear those who have occupied their land, directly challenging Moscow’s authority. His ties with pan-Turkic circles in Istanbul and support for protests in the Altai Republic have made him a symbol of the awakening.

Meanwhile, fighters from Yakutia are already taking up arms in Ukraine’s Siberian Battalion, envisioning a free Yakutia, fighting Russian forces, and inspiring those back home.

The Caucasus enters open insurgency

But while Yakutia’s resistance is still mostly political, Ingushetia’s has entered a far more dangerous phase of insurgency. Nestled in the volatile North Caucasus, the tiny Muslim republic has become the epicenter of a new wave of guerrilla warfare.

The Ingush Liberation Army, founded in 2023, now conducts attacks every month. In June 2025, its militants struck a Russian border post in North Ossetia with drones, killing two FSB officers.

In August, coordinated arson attacks targeted military depots in Dagestan, and recently, the group released a video showing fighters on patrol, armed, organized, and defiant.

Another separatist formation, the Caucasus Liberation Movement, unites Chechens, Dagestanis, and Ingush under one banner, waging what they call a war of anti-colonial resistance. Supported by Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, they recently eliminated a Lieutenant Colonel from a local counter sabotage unit in a precision explosion together with his driver and aide. Their message Moscow’s grip on the Caucasus is loosening, and the Kremlin’s agents are no longer untouchable.

Budanov’s blueprint: Ukraine’s silent offensive inside Russia

Behind much of this growing chaos lies what many analysts now refer to as Budanov’s blueprint. General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, is methodically cultivating resistance within Russia’s ethnic regions.

His operatives are spreading the truth about Russia’s war, about how ethnic minorities, Yakuts, Buryats, Ingush, Dagestanis, are being used as cannon fodder and dying by the thousands, while despite compromising less than 10 percent of the total population, they supply around 40 percent of contract soldiers.

Ukrainian intelligence has made direct contact with exiled activists and underground networks, providing them with intelligence, logistics, and training. The goal is strategic, as every region in turmoil means fewer Russian resources on the front, as many small fires can burn an empire from within.

Moscow’s internal front begins to smolder

And Russia is already feeling the heat, as the Kremlin’s unwritten social contract, to do whatever they want internationally as long as the internal population remains unbothered, is unraveling. When mobilization began during Ukraine’s Kharkiv counteroffensive in 2022, people protested because the war reached into their homes, and many were drafted by force.

Now, as Ukrainian drone strikes cripple oil refineries, gas stations across Russia are running dry. Protests over fuel shortages have erupted in several regions, and ordinary Russians, once detached from the war, are suddenly living its consequences. Simultaneously, many are seeing that the state can no longer shield them from its failures.

The first sparks of fragmentation

Overall, what began as cultural revival movements is mutating into revolutionary networks challenging Moscow’s rule from within. The Kremlin’s policy of exploitation, draining regions of resources, and sending their sons to die has sown the seeds of revolt. What Russian officials dismiss as isolated extremism is, in truth, the early stage of fragmentation.

Supported by Ukrainian intelligence, these movements are gaining confidence, structure, and purpose. They have waited generations for a spark, and now, as Russia bleeds on multiple fronts, it has arrived.

In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.