Ukraine is retaliating against Russia in a new way, encouraging minority groups in Russia to declare independence. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, post-colonial understandings of Russia have become prominent in the post-Soviet space.  Ukraine’s parliament has now zeroed in on Russia’s violent legacy in the North Caucasus, calling for self-determination for several of the minority groups in this region.  Russia’s disregard for Ukraine’s sovereignty might have ironically brought Moscow’s own territorial integrity into question.

Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, has taken three votes concerning non-Russian nationalities in the North Caucasus and their historical relations with Moscow.  First, in October of 2022, the Rada voted to recognize Chechnya as under “temporary” occupation and condemned what it termed “a policy of genocide of the Chechen people,” a reference to war crimes committed during the first and second Chechen wars, as well as mass deportations of Chechens during the 1940s and as far back as the 19^th century.  

Ukraine’s Rada subsequently voted in condemnation of Soviet-era crimes against the Ingush in February of 2024, and, in January of 2025, voted to recognize the 19^th-century mass killings and deportations of Circassians by Tsarist forces as a genocide and called for the self-determination of Circassians.   Another more general bill calling for recognition of the “national movements of colonial peoples of the Russian Federation” was introduced in 2024 but remains under consideration.

Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who helped draft the bill on Circassia, explained his sense of solidarity with the Circassians: “Like every Ukrainian, I am very close to the history of other nations that Russia has oppressed for centuries.”  When asked if the draft laws had received input from North Caucasian exile movements, Goncharenko responded that he “maintain[s] contacts with legitimate representatives of the Caucasian peoples...not with representatives of the pro-Putin government.” 

The legislation has made Ukraine the second country after Georgia to recognize the Circassian genocide, and the sole country recognizing a genocide against Chechens and declaring their temporary occupation, seemingly calling in general for some degree of self-determination for Russia’s minority nationalities.

Chechnya did have a short-lived period of independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union before Russia re-asserted control in the second Russo-Chechen war, which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of civilians and the widespread destruction of Grozny, Chechnya's largest city.  

It would seem for now that the Rada’s votes on this matter are largely symbolic.  What remains of the Chechen nationalist movement, while active within Ukraine, is quite small and would appear to bear little chance of re-establishing a Chechen state in the near future.  Georgia’s recognition of the Circassian genocide in 2011 did not lead to a politically impactful change, possibly in part because most Circassians today live outside of the North Caucasus.  However, Goncharenko maintains the serious intentions of the bills, stating, “We need to understand that Ukraine is now fighting not only for its own independence, but also for the independence of all the peoples that the bloody Russian empire has destroyed.... These bills are a demonstration of our support in their fight for their future.”

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian votes do lend a newfound relevance to movements for self-determination in the North Caucasus, an issue that many in Moscow believe resolved.  In a region that has seen several destructive conflicts due to ethnic successionist movements, the Rada’s votes could have real consequences.