Russia will be plunged into a “massive ethnic conflict” when Vladimir Putin’s regime collapses, Ukrainian partisans have told Express.co.uk.
Atesh is a partisan group that is based in the Crimea, whose members are mostly made up of local Tatars and Ukrainians.
Meaning “fire” in the Tatar language, Atesh was formed in the immediate aftermath of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Its main functions include carrying out sabotage operations against the Russian army, as well as intelligence gathering and supporting pro-Ukrainian resistance movements in the occupied territories.
The group landed its biggest blow against Putin’s military when they helped organise a missile attack on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in September 2023, which killed 34 officers and injured more than 100 people.
A member of the group told Express.co.uk that they were actively seeking to build alliances with other Tatar groups inside Russia, in a bid to foment an ethnic uprising against Putin’s regime.
“We see great potential in this,” they said. “Weakening Russia through internal uprisings could be an important step towards ending the aggression.”
Russia is made up of a complex tapestry of ethnic cultures and people, with over 190 different nationalities living in the country.
The Tatars, who are of Turkic origin, form the largest group of these, with a population of just over 5.3 million, according to a 2010 national census.
Most of them live in the autonomous republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, that are part of the Russian Federation.
Both these republics have established national movements fighting for independence from the Kremlin and who make natural allies for Atesh.
The Atesh member claimed their movement was attracting members from all of Russia’s minority groups.
“All peoples of the modern Russian Federation are under pressure, often losing their identity and culture,” they explained.
“This is why representatives of national minorities in Russia often join us. In our movement, they find the opportunity to work to dismantle the project called “Russian Federation” and fight for a better future for their peoples.
“We are confident that after the defeat of the Putin regime and the death of the dictator himself, massive ethnic conflicts will begin in Russia.”
Atesh say they are the largest partisan movement in both Russia and Ukraine and have representatives from Kaliningrad to Siberia, including in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
They aim to develop their regional cells and scale up their attacks inside Russia.
“We feel the support of representatives of the Turkic and Caucasian peoples in Russia,” they said. “Therefore, we have many tools to strike at Putin’s war machine.”