I first met Daria Egereva in Moscow in 2000 when she was a young university student working at an organization called RAIPON. RAIPON is the organization's English-language name, the one it is known by in Russia as well. Spelled out, RAIPON is the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North. The organization serves as an umbrella body for dozens of small local representative groups of the Nivkh, Dolgan, Evenk, Selkup and Yukaghir peoples.

RAIPON was founded in Russia during the era of Boris Yeltsin to fight for the rights of small indigenous peoples in Siberia and the Far East, one of the most important issues at the time being land-use rights. Even during the Soviet period, various oil, gas, gold, forestry and coal companies had routinely ridden roughshod over local indigenous communities, carrying out their operations on traditional hunting grounds, farmland and reindeer pastures, generally without seeking much in the way of permission.

From the outset, RAIPON was a somewhat controversial organization. On the one hand, it defended the interests of indigenous minorities from the state; on the other, its activities were partly supported by that same state. RAIPON had a large, handsome office on Leninsky Prospekt and did not live poorly, as the organization also received financial support from several Western foundations — for some reason, particularly from Norway.

The association participated in the international network of indigenous organizations and its members actively traveled abroad to conferences, meetings and training sessions. One result, incidentally, was that more than a few young women from among Siberia's indigenous peoples found husbands among Canadian or Alaskan Indians and remained there.

At a certain point, RAIPON became a political force to be reckoned with — in fact, this had already happened in the 1990s.

I remember that when a major oil conglomerates' event was held in London in the 1990s — if memory serves, quotas of some kind were being bought and sold — a large protest by indigenous organizations took place outside the venue against Lukoil's activities in the territory of the Khanty and Mansi peoples. The protest was initiated by RAIPON, which, through its connections, mobilized representatives of various indigenous organizations based in London. Tibetans, Indians from South and North America and Inuit took to the streets with placards in defense of the rights of the peoples of Siberia.

Around the time of the annexation of Crimea, Russia increasingly sought to bring RAIPON under control. The more uncompromising leaders were replaced with more loyal ones and some activists fled abroad. In the regions, taking control of local associations was even easier.

Daria began at RAIPON as a functionary working on youth projects. Later, she steadily rose through the organization's hierarchy. Perhaps one thing that stirred envy among many was that she often traveled abroad. Her most recent social media photos were taken at an indigenous climate event held somewhere overseas — Daria was a member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

When the full-scale war between Ukraine and Russia began, the more uncompromising members of RAIPON left the organization and founded Aborigen Forum. RAIPON, meanwhile, mutated into an ultra-loyal, opportunistic association controlled by the Russian state, which to this day represents Russia's indigenous peoples internationally.

As is so often the case in Russia, the activities of Aborigen Forum also began to be restricted. The organization was accused of anti-state and extremist activity — for example, of belonging to the nonexistent "Post-Russia Free Nations Forum" and participating in an anti-Russian separatist movement. In 2024, the Post-Russia Forum and its 172 sub-organizations were declared terrorist entities, although 68 of the accused organizations had never existed in the first place.

Still, some of the organizations declared extremist do in fact exist. They are largely indigenous organizations operating in exile, such as Asiatic Russia, Free Yakutia, New Tuva and Free Buryatia — associations opposed to Vladimir Putin's regime. Aborigen Forum was also among the organizations designated as terrorist.

According to Russia's Ministry of Justice, there exists an "international social movement aimed at destroying Russia's multinational unity and territorial integrity" and this movement was declared extremist. I do not know what is being consumed in that ministry, but under the same template feminism and LGBT+ were also declared extremist organizations in Russia. In response, Aborigen Forum dissolved itself.

None of this helped. Following some curious cabalistic numerology, on December 17 the FSB arrested 17 indigenous rights activists across Russia, from Khabarovsk to Moscow. All but Daria were released and she remains in pretrial detention on terrorism charges, which carry a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

The grotesque aspect, according to people familiar with Russia's current justice system, is that Daria has no chance of avoiding conviction. The only way she might avoid spending the coming decades in prison or a penal colony would be through a presidential amnesty or by being exchanged for a Russian spy imprisoned in the West. All of this is taking place in 2026, officially declared in Russia as the Year of the Unity of the Peoples of Russia.

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