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Ukrainian Forces Capture Russian Soldier From Endangered Ket Ethnic Group
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![Photo of Liubava Petriv]( "Photo of Liubava Petriv")
On the Pokrovsk front, Ukrainian forces captured a Russian soldier belonging to the Ket ethnic group—one of the smallest Indigenous peoples in the Russian Federation. The capture was reported by the “Svoboda” battalion of the National Guard brigade “Rubizh.”
The 50-year-old captive, identified as Oleksandr, is originally from Kellogg, a remote settlement in Krasnoyarsk Krai, over 3,000 kilometers from Ukraine. He confessed that he joined the Russian army “because of drinking, because of prison.”
He and another soldier were walking through a Ukrainian village when they were intercepted by Ukrainian troops. In a conversation recorded by “Svoboda,” Oleksandr described his heritage:
“The [Ket people] are a small-numbered Indigenous people of the North. Among all nationalities, ours is the smallest.”
Asked how many Kets remain today, he replied:
“Less than a thousand.”
The 2021 Russian census puts that number at 1,088. The prisoner also revealed he has no children, doesn’t speak the Ket language, and knows little of his people’s culture—much of which, he said, has already been lost. Traditionally, the Kets rely on hunting and fishing.
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He also noted that he hadn’t met any other Kets during his time in the war.
The Ket people are Indigenous to parts of Southern Siberia and are believed to share ancient links with Native American populations. Historically, they had a unique mythological system featuring a sky god named Es’. However, after Russian colonization, the Kets adopted Orthodox Christianity.
Linguistically, Ket is the last surviving language of the Yeniseian family—a group of languages that vanished almost entirely by the 19th century. Once written in a Latin-based script, the language is now considered critically endangered.
Today, most Kets reside in just three rural districts of Krasnoyarsk Krai. Interestingly, Ukraine’s 2001 census recorded 37 Kets living within its borders.
Earlier, it was reported that at least 270 citizens of Kazakhstan have been confirmed dead or missing while fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
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