The Institute for the Study of War reports that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s unequal implementation of partial mobilization is causing social fractures that are driving the Russian information space to "further marginalize ethnic minority communities." As ISW has previously reported, an Oct. 15 shooting at a Belgorod Oblast training ground was likely a natural consequence of the Kremlin’s continued policy of using poor and minority communities to bear the brunt of force generation efforts while protecting ethnic Russians and wealthier Russian citizens.
Russian sources blamed that shooting on two ethnically Tajik Russian citizens who had been forcibly mobilized.
"The Russian information space has largely responded with virulently xenophobic rhetoric against Central Asian migrants and other peripheral social groups," the ISW found.
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