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.
