Ukraine is the second country in the world to have recognised Circassian /tsherkasian/ genocide 09.01.2025. Circassian was an ethnicity on the Black sea bordering Sakartvelo, where russian Sochi is right now. Here below I quote the most striking passages from the wiki article. TW: some citations are really disturbing as they describe the cruelty of russian army (I stroked them through and used the subscript):

This was systematic mass killing, ethnic cleansing, and expulsion of between 95% and 97% of the Circassian people by russian army in the 19th century.

Many Russian generals described the Circassians as _{“subhuman filth” and a “lowly race”, “untrustworthy swine”, “insignificant they are compared to Russia”} to justify and glorify their wholesale _{slaughter of Circassians and their use as human test subjects in unethical scientific experiments} (the history is fucking repeating itself!)

Deciding that Circassians would not surrender willingly, General Yermolov concluded that “terror” as an official strategy would be effective. Although terror methods were already in use, they were only officialized after Yermolov’s orders

Destroyed native villages, and often settled new farming communities of Russians or other Orthodox Slavic people. In this increasingly bloody situation, the wholesale destruction of villages became a standard tactic. (they repeated it in the East of Ukraine some 60-70 yrs later during Holodomors, ww2 and in Gulags)

Notable killing methods used by the Imperial Russian Army in Circassia included _{impalement and tearing open the bellies of pregnant women}

A British diplomat, who witnessed the genocide, recalled that “their [the Circassians] only crime was not being Russian.

The Russian Federation classifies the events in Circassia as a mass migration (and the war in Ukraine “special operation”)

I haven’t finished reading the article yet – it’s just too painful. When I read the 1st chapter I started crying. It was a bit too much in the past few days:

1st there was Zaporizhia, where 11 people died (and I visited the city during my solo cycle tour in 2021 visiting my online friend, who became my flatmate, her friends became my friends).

Then a few days ago at Thalia bookstore in Halle (Saale) I asked an employee to change the name of a book shelf from “ukrainian-russian conflict” to “genocide” or at least “war”. He responded that even though for him this is a war, they’re trying to be neutral and “hear both sides” And after my argument that we don’t listen to a man who beats his wife, he said that he’s there to sell books, not discuss politics and kind of blocked himself with a cabinet door.

And later that day I saw a post about the news about the recognition of Circassian genocide and read this wiki article.

So I cried for the Circassian people, for Ukrainians. For them and for us. I felt an urge to come back to that man and shake all the “neutrality” out him, or yet better – beat it out.

But I’ve kind of grown a skin in three years. I face such things on a regular basis here. Of course, there are blissful moments of acceptance and almost full understanding of the situation but they are extremely rare even among Ukrainians unfortunately.

Recently I’ve been pretty active on bluesky. It’s like twitter but open source and without Musk and Trump and more decentralized moderation. Follow me there https://bsky.app/profile/nastasime.bsky.social

Для українців та українок там величезні плюси – можна називати речі своїми іменами (на відміну від фб) і постити збори. Тобто, там є український сегмент. Підписуйтеся на мене там і тікайте подалі від рашистського тг.