PSCRP-BESA Reports No 220 (July 25, 2026)
Introduction
The institution of indigenous small-numbered peoples (ISNP) in the Russian Federation represents a unique legal phenomenon, combining constitutional guarantees, special federal and regional legislation, and a system of preferences designed to compensate for the vulnerability of ethnic groups numbering fewer than 50,000 persons. However, as an analysis of public information for 2025–2026 demonstrates, the very status of ISNP, which presupposes the granting of special rights and benefits, generates multiple conflicts of various natures. These conflicts are not a consequence of ill‑intentioned policy but constitute a systemic effect inevitably arising when a differentiated legal regime is introduced for certain categories of the population under conditions of a complex balance of interests – between traditional nature use and industrial development of territories, between federal and regional norm‑setting, and between formal criteria of belonging to ISNP and citizens’ self‑identification.
This article proposes a typology of conflicts arising around benefits and preferences for ISNP, based on empirical material published in open sources in 2025–2026.
Theoretical Foundations and Review of Previous Research
In academic literature, the problem of preferential regimes for ethnic minorities has traditionally been examined within several theoretical approaches. Multiculturalism theory (W. Kymlicka, C. Taylor) justifies the necessity of differentiated rights for ethno‑cultural groups as a means of preserving cultural diversity and compensating for historical injustice. The institutional approach (D. North, E. Ostrom) emphasises that any preferential regimes create new institutional traps – situations in which the legislator’s good intentions come into contradiction with enforcement practices and generate unexpected conflict effects.
With respect to Russian ISNP, previous studies (see, for example, the works of S.A. Fundament, S.N. Kharyuchi, as well as the annual reports of the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs – IWGIA) have focused primarily on the problems of implementing ISNP rights in the spheres of land use and traditional nature use. However, a systematic typology of conflicts generated by the institution of benefits and preferences themselves has remained insufficiently developed. The present study fills this gap by proposing a classification of conflicts according to their source and mechanism of occurrence.
Research Methodology
The research based on a content analysis of public information published between 1 January 2025 and July 2026. The sources included official internet portals of judicial bodies (the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, arbitrazh courts, courts of general jurisdiction), official legal information portals (GARANT, ConsultantPlus), official websites of state authorities (the Government of the Russian Federation, the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs), as well as materials from independent news agencies and analytical centres. In total, more than 30 sources containing information on judicial disputes, legislative changes, administrative practices, and socially significant events related to ISNP were analysed.
Typology of Conflicts
The analysis of empirical material allows us to identify five main types of conflicts arising around the status of ISNP and the associated benefits and preferences.
Type One: Conflicts over Normative Uncertainty of Compensation Mechanisms
The most illustrative example is the administrative claim brought by the family (clan) communities “Kunnoir” and “Madra” against the Government of the Russian Federation seeking to invalidate Government Resolution No. 1488 of 18 September 2020, which approved the Regulation on the Procedure for Compensation of Losses Caused to Indigenous Small‑Numbered Peoples as a Result of Damage to Their Traditional Habitat by Economic Activities. On 18 February 2026, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dismissed the claim; appellate proceedings (Case No. APL26‑133) are scheduled for 7 July 2026 (Source). This conflict has a normative nature: the plaintiffs challenged not a specific law‑enforcement decision but the very procedure for calculating losses, claiming it insufficiently protected the interests of ISNP. The dismissal by the court of first instance demonstrates that even with special legislation in place, implementation mechanisms remain the subject of acute normative disputes. As the Interregional Public Movement “KMNSOYUZ” notes, “in December 2025, representatives of the Kunnoir and Madra communities appealed to the Supreme Court with a claim to declare Government Resolution No. 1488 invalid, believing that this resolution violates the rights of communities by excluding them from the decision‑making process” (Source). This position of the plaintiffs reflects a fundamental problem: even with a formal compensation mechanism in place, its normative design may exclude key stakeholders from decision‑making, thereby generating a legitimacy conflict.
Type Two: Conflicts over the Interpretation of Liability for Environmental Damage
The Arbitrazh Court of the North‑Western Circuit, in its ruling of 3 July 2026, recorded the recovery from the territorial‑neighbourhood Saami community “Kola” of RUB 3,198,000 as compensation for damage caused to soils (Source). The community insisted that it should not bear responsibility for unauthorised waste disposal because it does not conduct economic activities. The conflict here arises at the intersection of two legal regimes: on the one hand, the community as an ISNP subject enjoys a special status and preferences; on the other hand, it acts as the owner or user of a land plot and bears general civil liability for its condition. The court sided with Rosprirodnadzor, thereby confirming that preferential status does not exempt from obligations arising from environmental legislation. In the context of similar environmental incidents in the Murmansk Region, Rosprirodnadzor stated: “Exceedances of the maximum permissible concentration for the pollutant ‘petroleum products’ by a factor of 400 have been established”. Although this statement relates to a different case, it illustrates the supervisory authority’s general approach to assessing environmental damage, under which ISNP status is not regarded as a ground for exemption from liability for the state of the environment in the territories under their use.
Type Three: Conflicts over Recognition of Territories of Traditional Nature Use (TTNU)
The family community “Ayakta” (Kets) challenged the refusal of the Turukhansk District Council of Deputies of Krasnoyarsk Krai to establish a locally significant TTNU of 290,980 hectares. The Eighth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction dismissed the complaint on 18 June 2025 (Source). In another case, the Arbitrazh Court of Krasnoyarsk Krai considered a claim by PJSC “Surgutneftegaz” for the compulsory seizure for state needs of land plots belonging to the community “Nya tansa” (Nganasans).
In a generalised form, as noted in the analytical review by Arctida, in the Yamalo‑Nenets Autonomous Okrug, applications for the establishment of TTNU may be rejected if the proposed territory overlaps with land already used by a legal entity for activities unrelated to traditional nature use, or includes subsoil plots of federal significance. In Krasnoyarsk Krai, legislation imposes restrictions that prevent the creation of large TTNU where existing production facilities or licensed subsoil plots are already located (Source). Conflicts of this type represent a classic clash between two models of land use: territorial (traditional nature use by ISNP) and sectoral (industrial development). At the same time, as practice shows, the establishment of TTNU in a number of cases becomes possible only after a cassation court decision.
The Chairman of the Council of Representatives of Indigenous Small‑Numbered Peoples of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Grigory Dyukarev, states: “the region still lacks a stable practice of creating such territories at the federal and regional levels. Basically, only TTNU of local significance are in operation – in Evenkia there are already 31 of them” (Source). This assessment confirms that even in regions with a relatively developed institutional infrastructure, the status of TTNU remains predominantly local, which limits communities’ access to the full range of preferences provided for by federal legislation.
Type Four: Conflicts over Identity and Criteria of Belonging to ISNP
The Moscow City Court, in its appellate ruling of 25 March 2026, upheld the decision of the Presnensky District Court dismissing a citizen’s claim for inclusion in the “list of persons belonging to indigenous small‑numbered peoples of the Russian Federation.” The Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs (FADN) justified its refusal on the grounds that the people “Russians” are not included in the Unified List of ISNP approved by Government Resolution No. 255 of 24 March 2000 (Source). This conflict exposes a fundamental problem of any preferential regime based on ethnic affiliation: the criteria for inclusion in a privileged category are inevitably formal and cannot encompass the entire diversity of self‑identifications. The citizen, who relied on a regional normative act recognising Russians as an indigenous small‑numbered people at the subject‑of‑federation level, encountered a hierarchy of legal acts in which the federal list takes precedence.
Deputy Head of the FADN Anna Kotova, commenting on the problems of registering persons belonging to ISNP, noted: “currently, representatives of indigenous peoples, when applying to the Pension Fund for early retirement, must provide various documents, and sometimes even confirm their ethnic affiliation in court”. This admission by a high‑ranking official confirms that administrative barriers associated with the formal verification of ISNP status create additional conflict situations that require judicial resolution even in cases concerning socially significant preferences.
As the IWGIA report “The Indigenous World 2025” notes, the Russian legal system is built around the category of “indigenous small‑numbered peoples,” which narrows the group of indigenous peoples to those recognised by the state as “small‑numbered.” Some indigenous peoples – for example, the Arctic Sakha, the Komi, or the Karelians – do not receive protection within this system because they formally do not meet the ISNP criterion. Since 2020, an additional barrier has been the register of persons belonging to ISNP, maintained by the FADN. This register, designed to simplify accounting, in practice creates additional administrative barriers to access to preferences (Source).
Type Five: Conflicts over Access to Preferences and Administrative Barriers
According to a TASS report of 25 April 2025, more than 100,000 persons are included in the federal register/list of ISNP persons (Source). However, administrative practices for inclusion in the register require the submission of documents, including court decisions establishing belonging in the absence of other evidence. As noted in the IWGIA report, in 2025 new requirements were introduced for obtaining social and economic benefits by ISNP persons, including mandatory inclusion in the list, which complicates access (Source).
Also indicative is the conflict recorded in the Republic of Dagestan: the FADN proposed to deprive the republic of its unique powers to independently form its list of indigenous peoples and to unify the procedure (Source). Here two approaches clash: the regional one, taking into account local specificity, and the federal one, striving for uniformity of registration procedures.
Institutional Root Causes of Conflicts
The conducted analysis allows us to identify several systemic causes that generate conflicts around the status of ISNP.
First cause: multiplicity and multi‑level nature of legal regulation. The status of ISNP is regulated by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, three special federal laws, more than 20 federal laws containing separate provisions on ISNP, as well as regional legislation. Such multiplicity inevitably creates collisions and gaps.
Second cause: the gap between declaratory norms and law enforcement practice. As noted in the analytical review by Arctida, the legal framework for protecting ISNP rights “has been generally created,” but in practice it works selectively – sometimes only after judicial proceedings or when it is already too late. A project may obtain a licence for resource development before the indigenous community learns of its consequences (Source).
Third cause: competition between two models of territorial development. In the territories of traditional residence of ISNP, the interests of industrial development (oil and gas extraction, gold mining, logging) and traditional nature use (reindeer herding, fishing, hunting) collide. At the same time, as practice shows, the establishment of TTNU often becomes possible only after a court decision.
Fourth cause: bureaucratisation of access to preferences. The introduction of the register of ISNP persons, designed to simplify accounting, has in practice created an additional administrative filter, and exclusion from the list on the person’s own initiative requires consideration of the application within 30 days.
Social and Demographic Aspects of the Conflict Field
Beyond judicial and legal conflicts, the analysis of public information reveals conflicts related to demographic risks and social vulnerability of ISNP. Since 2022, according to human rights activists, there has been a disproportionate mobilisation of men from ISNP. From the Nanai village of Dada (population about 400), 40 men were conscripted. The Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North of Khabarovsk Krai appealed to the President of the Russian Federation with a request to halt mobilisation in indigenous settlements, pointing out that the conscription of “the last Orochs, Udege and Nanais” could lead to the extinction of the peoples. The Far Eastern Federal District ranks first in Russia in the number of confirmed military losses per capita, a significant part of which falls on ISNP (Source).
This conflict has a particular nature: it arises not from contradictions in legislation on ISNP, but from the clash of a universal state obligation (mobilisation) with the special status of ISNP, which presupposes additional protective measures due to demographic vulnerability.
In the context of increasing pressure on indigenous organisations, the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) qualified the arrest of Daria Egereva as a “grave case of intimidation and reprisal against an Indigenous leader in direct connection with her participation in the UNFCCC process.” The organisation stressed that “this legal construction is fabricated: the ‘Anti‑Russian Separatist Movement’ does not exist as a real organisation, and CSIPN has never engaged in or advocated violence or any conduct that could be characterised as terrorism under international law” (Source). A similar assessment was given by Amnesty International: “Daria Egereva is a representative of the Selkups, one of the small indigenous peoples of Western Siberia (Russia). … All this suggests an increasing pressure on civil society of indigenous peoples” (Source). These assessments by independent international human rights organisations indicate that conflicts around the status of ISNP extend beyond purely legal disputes and acquire a dimension related to the implementation of fundamental human rights.
The International Dimension of Conflicts
Conflicts around the status of ISNP in Russia receive international resonance. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its Concluding Observations on the seventh periodic report of the Russian Federation (2025), expressed concern about reprisals against human rights defenders, including defenders of ISNP rights, and recommended that efforts be stepped up to ensure the right of indigenous peoples to own, use and manage lands and resources, to conduct systematic prior consultations to obtain free, prior and informed consent before issuing licences for economic activities, to ensure access to health care, education and other services, and to consider ratifying ILO Convention No. 169 (Source). The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Russian Federation, Mariana Katzarova, in her 2025 report noted that Russia’s indigenous peoples remain among the most vulnerable groups (Source).
The international context exacerbates conflicts because it creates an additional dimension – the relationship between national legislation and international obligations. Russia has not ratified ILO Convention No. 169 concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, which is a subject of criticism by international bodies.
In the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), which is the only subject of the Russian Federation where a regional law on ethnological expertise has been adopted, deputy Sakhamin Afanasyev noted that “the Law ‘On Ethnological Expertise’ obliges subsoil users, before commencing economic activities, to conduct a scientific study of the impact of changes in the traditional habitat of small‑numbered peoples on the development of ethnic groups and to compensate for damage caused to the traditional habitat” (Source). However, as practice shows, even the existence of such a law does not exclude judicial disputes between communities and industrial companies, confirming the universal nature of conflicts generated by preferential regimes.
Conclusion: The Universal Lesson of Preferential Regimes
The conducted analysis allows us to formulate a conclusion that has significance not only for understanding the situation with ISNP in Russia, but also for comprehending the nature of preferential regimes in general. The attempt to create a system of benefits and preferences for any group of the population – even from the best intentions, guided by principles of social justice and preservation of cultural diversity – inevitably gives rise to systemic and diverse conflicts.
These conflicts have an objective nature: they arise from the need to define the boundaries of the privileged category (who exactly is entitled to preferences?), from competition between the preferential and general legal regimes (what is the scope of exceptions from general legislation?), from clashes of interests of different groups of users of natural resources, from bureaucratic procedures for access to benefits, from the gap between declared goals and practical implementation mechanisms.
The head of the Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs, Igor Barinov, formulated the target guideline of state policy in this sphere: “The Federal Agency for Nationalities Affairs pays great attention to the sustainable development of indigenous small‑numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, because due to their way of life they are very vulnerable”. However, as the analysis shows, even with such declared attention, systemic conflicts persist and multiply, which testifies to the institutional nature of these contradictions.
This conclusion is directly relevant to the situation in Israel, where the system of preferences and special rights for various categories of the population – including Haredim (ultra‑Orthodox Jews) and the Arab population – also generates multiple conflicts: around military service, around access to education and employment, around land relations, around the status of religious institutions. As in the case of ISNP in Russia, these conflicts are not evidence of ill intention on the part of the legislator, but constitute a systemic effect of any differentiated legal regime. The more complex and diverse the system of preferences, the more potential conflict points it creates. Awareness of this regularity is a necessary condition for developing a balanced policy in the sphere of benefits and preferences – a policy that would take into account not only good intentions, but also the inevitable institutional consequences.