Stepan Pakhomov, a member of an Indigenous people of the North from Yakutia, left to fight in Ukraine in December 2024 after five years of appealing his prosecution for illegal hunting in the taiga. This was reported by Ilken, the information portal for the Indigenous Peoples of the North, on January 15.
Stepan Pakhomov joined the war in Ukraine in December 2024. He had previously been sentenced to 5.5 years in prison for refusing to surrender his shotgun, as ordered by the court in a case concerning illegal hunting in Yakutia. His family believes the sentence was unfair, arguing that, as a representative of an Indigenous group, he had the right to hunt in the taiga on his ancestral lands.
According to Pakhomov’s daughter, the September 2022 sentence deeply affected him. He began drinking heavily and was barred from visiting his homeland, where his relatives are buried. His wife, who had fought for justice alongside him, eventually gave up under the strain and divorced him.
In December 2024, representatives of small-numbered Indigenous peoples submitted an appeal to the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs, calling for Pakhomov’s release. While the agency confirmed that Indigenous peoples are entitled to traditional hunting on general-access hunting grounds, no action followed.
In 2020, police detained Pakhomov and two friends with the meat of two moose. Pakhomov’s daughter stated that the officers ignored the men’s valid permits for traditional hunting. Stepan, an Aldan Evenki, had been hunting to provide meat for his family since his youth.
The court ruled that the men had violated hunting regulations for general-access grounds. Pakhomov and his friend, Ivan Sosin, received a one-year suspended sentence. Their hunting and firearm licenses were revoked, and they were fined 160,000 rubles.
