“Back in the day, a small group of Ukrainians came to help us fight against the Russians, and we have not forgotten that.“As long as Russia exists, we cannot live in peace.” Azhiyev is far from the only one from Russia who sees the war in Ukraine as a chance for ethnic minorities inside the country to push for greater autonomy or even independence.His said his ethnic group of some 800,000 people, whose historical homeland is in what is now the Russian Republic of Mordovia, was also sending volunteers to fight for Ukraine.These forces, they argue, will strengthen as the pressures of the war and unprecedented economic sanctions erode Moscow’s leverage over Russia’s regions, from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific.“If Putin loses the war – and that is a very realistic possibility – then I don’t see any legal means to change the government."