In recent times, scholars and Circassian activists have proposed that the deportations could be considered a manifestation of the modern day concept of ethnic cleansing, though the term had not been in use in the 19th century, noting the systematic massacre of villages by Russian soldiers that was accompanied by the Russian colonization of these lands. They estimate that some 90 percent of Circassians (estimated at more than one million) had relocated from the territories occupied by Russia. During these events, and the preceding Caucasian War, at least hundreds of thousands of people were "killed or starved to death", but the exact number is still unknown.