Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s appeal to Russia’s ethnic peoples to resist the Kremlin’s military call-up has reverberated beyond Russia’s borders, including in Turkey where a vibrant Caucasian diaspora has joined forces to help those fleeing conscription for the war in Ukraine. 

Following Moscow’s partial mobilization order and annexation of four regions of Ukraine, Zelenskyy addressed “the peoples of the Caucasus” on Sept. 29, speaking in front of a memorial plaque to Imam Shamil, the symbol of the 19th-century resistance against imperial Russia in the North Caucasus. “No one has to take part in a disgraceful war. Dagestanis do not have to die in Ukraine. Chechens, Ingush, Ossetians, Circassians and any other peoples who came under the Russian flag,” he said. 

Zelenskyy’s appeal coincided with protests across the North Caucasian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria amid rising concerns that the mobilization is disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities. Women rallied in the forefront against the conscription of their sons.

Turkey, which is home to a sizable community of Caucasian origin, including up to 4 million Circassians, has emerged as a prime destination for those fleeing the draft. The exodus has prompted the Caucasian diaspora to mobilize to help those arriving in Turkey, evoking the support it extended to refugees who fled the wars in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Chechnya in the 1990s and Circassians who fled Syria after the eruption of civil strife in 2011.