Ukraine recognised the Circassian genocide on 9 January 2025, becoming the second state after Georgia to do so. This essay examines the parliamentary resolution, the earlier recognition initiatives, the wartime context, diaspora responses, and the place of the Circassian case in Ukraine’s wider critique of Russian imperialism.
Ukraine became the second state after Georgia to recognise the Circassian genocide. On 9 January 2025, the Verkhovna Rada adopted Resolution No. 4206-IX, titled “On the Recognition of the Genocide of the Circassian People Committed by the Russian Empire.” The resolution originated as draft resolution No. 11347, registered on 17 June 2024, and was adopted on 9 January 2025 before being signed and circulated for publication on 14 January 2025. The official parliamentary record identifies the resolution as a humanitarian-policy matter and lists it as adopted and signed.
The decision was supported by 232 members of parliament. Ukraine’s National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide reported on the day of the vote that the Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft resolution recognising the genocide of the Circassian people committed by the Russian Empire, and that 232 MPs voted in favour. Radio Svoboda likewise reported that the document was supported by 232 parliamentarians. This makes the Ukrainian case especially important in the international recognition movement: Georgia had recognised the Circassian genocide in 2011, but for more than a decade no second state followed. Ukraine’s decision therefore broke that isolation and created a second parliamentary precedent.
The Ukrainian recognition was not a spontaneous gesture. Earlier proposals had already circulated in the Verkhovna Rada. In May 2023, draft resolution No. 9290 on recognition of the genocide of the Circassian people committed by the Russian Empire was registered in parliament. Parliamentary committee records also show earlier related initiatives, including a 2022 draft resolution on recognition of the genocide of the Circassian, or Adyghe, people during the Russian-Caucasian War. The 2025 adoption should therefore be understood as the outcome of a developing parliamentary and advocacy process rather than as an isolated wartime statement.
The official framing in Kyiv placed the Circassian case within Ukraine’s broader confrontation with Russian imperial history. A Verkhovna Rada news item published on 10 January 2025 stated that the Ukrainian parliament had adopted a resolution recognising the genocide of the Circassian people by the Russian Empire and called for condemnation of Russian propaganda’s attempts to distort historical facts. It also stated that more than 90 percent of the Indigenous population was exterminated or deported. The wording matters. Ukraine did not frame the Circassian catastrophe as a vague tragedy of war, but as a crime committed by the Russian imperial state and subsequently obscured by imperial and post-imperial narratives.
The Ukrainian World Congress reported that the Verkhovna Rada recognised the genocide committed by the Russian Empire during the Caucasian War of 1817–1864, and stated that the document was supported by 232 parliamentarians. It also noted that Georgia had been the first country to officially recognise the Circassian genocide in 2011. OC Media similarly reported that Ukraine’s parliament recognised both the Circassians’ right to self-determination and the nineteenth-century genocide perpetrated by the Russian Empire, making Ukraine the second country to recognise the genocide after Georgia.
Ukraine’s recognition belongs to a wider shift in Ukrainian discourse since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian public institutions, scholars, activists, and policymakers have increasingly described Russia not only as an aggressor state but as an imperial formation whose violence against Ukraine is connected to longer histories of conquest, deportation, linguistic domination, denial of sovereignty, and colonial governance. Within that framework, the Circassian genocide is not a remote Caucasian episode. It becomes part of a larger history of Russian imperial violence against non-Russian peoples.
This does not mean that Ukraine’s recognition should be read only as a wartime diplomatic move. It is also part of a broader Ukrainian interest in the histories and political rights of colonised and Indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation. The Caspian Policy Center argued in January 2025 that Ukraine’s recognition of the Circassian genocide formed part of a wider Ukrainian attempt to advance a post-colonial view of Russia and engage with North Caucasian and other non-Russian national movements. Jamestown analysis similarly described the vote as energising the Circassian national movement and noted that Circassian and human rights activists hoped Ukraine’s action would encourage other states to follow.
The Ukrainian decision also has an internal memory-political logic. Ukraine has built much of its modern politics of historical justice around the recognition of mass crimes, especially the Holodomor, Soviet deportations, Stalinist repression, and Russian imperial or Soviet violence against Ukrainian statehood and society. The Holodomor Museum’s publication of the Circassian recognition news is symbolically important in this respect. It places the Circassian genocide within a Ukrainian institutional environment already shaped by the language of genocide, colonial violence, remembrance, and denial.
The recognition debate also reflects Ukraine’s effort to internationalise its own anti-imperial argument. By recognising the Circassian genocide, Ukraine speaks not only about Circassians but also about the structure of Russian power. The resolution allows Ukraine to argue that Russian violence is not episodic or accidental, but historically patterned. It also helps Ukraine build relations with non-Russian peoples and diasporic communities who understand Russian imperialism through their own histories of conquest and displacement. In this sense, the recognition is both an act of solidarity and a strategic memory intervention.
Circassian and wider diaspora reactions were significant. The New Arab reported that Circassians in the Middle East and North Africa welcomed Ukraine’s recognition after years of campaigning by a diaspora scattered across the world. This matters because the Circassian recognition movement has always been transnational. Most Circassians live outside the North Caucasus, and recognition campaigns depend heavily on diaspora organisations, public advocacy, historical education, and the annual commemoration of 21 May as the Circassian Day of Mourning. Ukraine’s recognition strengthened those efforts by providing a second state-level precedent.
The Ukrainian case is also important because it sharpened the link between genocide recognition and the right to self-determination. OC Media reported that the Verkhovna Rada recognised the Circassians’ right to self-determination alongside recognition of the genocide. This distinguishes the Ukrainian approach from a purely retrospective act of mourning. It connects historical violence to the present status of Circassians as a people whose homeland, demography, and political possibilities were transformed by conquest and deportation. Such language is politically sensitive, because Moscow tends to treat recognition initiatives and discussions of non-Russian peoples’ rights as hostile interventions into Russia’s internal affairs.
Indeed, Russia’s likely opposition was part of the debate from the beginning. Jamestown noted that Moscow was working to blunt the impact of Ukraine’s action and prevent other countries from following, as well as to block the return of Circassians to their homeland. This reaction is predictable. Recognition of the Circassian genocide directly challenges the Russian state’s preferred narrative of the Caucasus as a region integrated through legitimate state-building, security policy, or civilisational development. It instead frames Russian conquest as colonial violence and demographic destruction.
The scholarly context for Ukraine’s recognition is now emerging. Michael Kelbaugh’s 2025 article, “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Recognition of the Circassian Genocide,” states that on 9 January 2025 the Verkhovna Rada declared the nineteenth-century Russian conquest of Circassia a genocide, making Ukraine the second country after Georgia to recognise the Circassian genocide. The article situates both recognitions within memory politics, nationalism, Russian-Georgian and Russian-Ukrainian conflicts, and the wider literature on the Circassian genocide. This is useful because it allows the Ukrainian decision to be analysed comparatively rather than treated as an isolated news event.
Ukraine’s recognition also clarifies a broader issue for future recognition campaigns in Poland, Lithuania, and elsewhere. Recognition usually advances through several stages: community memory, scholarly documentation, diaspora advocacy, parliamentary initiative, committee discussion, public debate, and formal resolution. Ukraine’s path shows this sequence clearly. Drafts appeared before the final 2025 vote; civil society and Circassian organisations advocated; the full-scale war gave Russian imperial history new urgency; and the final parliamentary act provided the second state recognition precedent after Georgia.
At the same time, the Ukrainian case requires careful interpretation. Recognition took place during a major war with Russia, and that context shaped its meaning. Critics may argue that the resolution was motivated by anti-Russian politics. But such an argument does not invalidate the historical question. Genocide recognition is almost always political because it assigns public meaning to violence and challenges denial. The proper test is not whether politics is present, but whether the recognition is grounded in serious historical evidence. In the Circassian case, the historical basis includes Russian imperial records, Ottoman refugee documentation, British consular reports, contemporary observer accounts, Circassian memory, and a substantial scholarly literature on conquest, deportation, and genocide.
Ukraine’s recognition of the Circassian genocide therefore has three main implications. First, it strengthened the international status of the Circassian recognition movement by creating a second state precedent after Georgia. Second, it placed the Circassian genocide within a contemporary Ukrainian critique of Russian imperialism and colonial violence. Third, it linked historical justice to present debates about the rights, memory, and political future of non-Russian peoples affected by Russian imperial expansion.
For the Genocide Recognition Dossier, Ukraine’s case should be treated as both a recognition precedent and a contemporary policy signal. It shows how historical memory, wartime politics, diaspora advocacy, and post-imperial analysis can converge in parliamentary action. It also demonstrates why the Circassian genocide is no longer only a subject of community remembrance or specialised scholarship. It has become part of a wider European debate about Russian empire, historical justice, and the political meaning of recognition.
Selected Reading and Sources
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Draft Resolution No. 11347 / Resolution No. 4206-IX, “On the Recognition of the Genocide of the Circassian People Committed by the Russian Empire,” adopted 9 January 2025.
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. “Maria Mezentseva-Fedorenko: Ukraine recognized the genocide of the Circassians and called for condemnation of Russian propaganda’s attempts to distort historical facts.” 10 January 2025.
National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide. “Ukraine recognises the genocide of Circassians committed by the Russian Empire.” 9 January 2025.
Radio Svoboda. “The Verkhovna Rada recognized the genocide of the Circassian people.” 9 January 2025.
Ukrainian World Congress. “Ukraine recognizes the genocide of Circassian people by Tsarist Russia.” 10 January 2025.
OC Media. “Ukraine recognises Circassian Genocide.” 9 January 2025.
Jamestown Foundation. “Circassian National Movement Energized by Kyiv’s Recognition of Russian Genocide.” 14 January 2025.
Caspian Policy Center. “Ukraine Looks to the North Caucasus to Advance a Post-Colonial View of Russia.” 23 January 2025.
Kelbaugh, Michael. “Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Recognition of the Circassian Genocide.” Journal of Caucasian Studies, 2025.