Rafis Kashapov, one of the leaders of the Tatar national movement, was convicted for his criticism of the Russian annexation of Crimea in September 2015 and sentenced to three years in a penal colony.

At the beginning of February 2018, Kashapov emigrated to Ukraine where he encountered a like-minded person named Syreś Boläeń, a Mordovian-born military pensioner of Erzyan ethnic origin.

[1] On March 21, 2018, Rafis Kashapov and Syreś Boläeń conducted a press conference with a small group of their adherents in Kyiv where the foundation of the Free Idel-Ural civic movement was publicly declared.

A few days after this declaration, the Russian media reported that a new criminal proceeding had been initiated against Kashapov for the publication of materials on the Internet that incite hatred on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, language and religion.

The main aim of the movement is the construction of the independent national democratic states of Erzyano-Mokshania, Chuvashia, Mari El, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Bashkortostan.

Free Idal-Ural aims for the construction of the independent national democratic states of Erzyano-Mokshania, Chuvashia, Mari El, Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Bashkortostan.

According to Boläeń, the very fact of the republics' presence, with their acknowledged administrative borders, is a great achievement of national movements, which will serve as a starting point in the process of gaining independence from Russia.

The Free Idal-Ural movement stands for the right for the people of Idel-Ural to receive the full scope of high school, college and university education in the official languages of the Republics.

Activists organize mass meetings and pickets near diplomatic offices of the Russian Federation in European states to draw attention to the problems of native peoples of Povolzhye.

[13] Meetings and picketing to support the Erzyan, Mokshan, Chuvash, Mari, Tatar, Udmurt and Bashkir languages were the very first mass public actions of the Free Idel-Ural civic movement.