Republic of Buryatia

The Republic of Buryatia (布里亞特共和國) is a federal republic of Russia located in southeastern Siberia, bordering Mongolia to the south and containing roughly 60 percent of the shoreline of Lake Baikal. Founded in 1923 as a Soviet-era autonomous republic, it has been administered as part of Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. Its capital, Ulan-Ude, lies along the Trans-Siberian Railway. Buryatia is home to Russia’s largest population of ethnic Buryats, a Mongolic people, and is widely described as a center of Tibetan Buddhist practice in Russia, alongside Russian Orthodox and shamanist traditions. China’s government has long signaled interest in Buryatia as a regional partner. In 2012, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping (程國平) met with then-Buryat president Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, with both sides describing the neighboring regions as having “vast potential” for cooperation. According to a Jamestown Foundation analysis, Buryat soldiers suffered disproportionately heavy losses fighting in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The same report stated that heavy battlefield losses, police violence, and corrupt local governance had together fueled mass protests and a new wave of Buryat political organizing. It separately described Buryatia as economically dependent on subsidies from Moscow, following Soviet-era industrial collapse and the closure of locally owned businesses.