Russians, Non-Russians in Post-Soviet Nations

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Sydney, N.S.] Cape Breton Post

Remember these two numbers: 15.4 and 71.5. I’ll explain.

Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, millions of ethnic Russians living on the fringes of the former Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which was just one of 15 union republics, suddenly found themselves in foreign countries. These were the 14 newly independent non-Russian successor states that most Russians now refer to as the “near abroad.”

Perhaps as many as 20 million ethnic Russians are estimated to live in the former republics outside the bounds of today’s Russian Federation. They comprise about 15.4 per cent of the overall ethnic Russian population in what had been the USSR.

These ethnic Russian communities, mostly in Ukraine, Belarus, and northern Kazakhstan, with lesser numbers in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and the Baltics states of Estonia and Latvia, serve not only as a significant factor in Russia’s quest for a national identity, but also as a political conduit for Russian influence.

The situation faced by the ethnic Russian diasporas varies widely. In Belarus, a close ally of Moscow’s, there was no perceivable change in status, but in Estonia and Latvia, they were deemed non-citizens if none of their ancestors had been a citizen of those countries before they were forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1940. Their situation remains precarious to this day.

This historical legacy has often been a source of tension between Russia and its neighbors. “Support for the rights of compatriots abroad is a crucial goal,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said as far back as 2005. “It cannot be subject to a diplomatic or political bargaining. Those who do not respect, observe, or ensure human rights have no right to demand that human rights be respected by others.”

Beginning with Putin’s third term as president in 2012, the ideological concept of ‘Russkii Mir” (Russian World) has become an intrinsic part of Russian diasporic policies. It  is comprised of three pillars: Russian language, historical Soviet memory, and the Russian Orthodox Church.

The issue gained particular saliency in Ukraine, with its nine million ethnic Russians. In 2014, Russia annexed Russian-majority Crimea, which prior to 1954 had been part of the Russian Republic of the USSR. Moscow also supported a war in eastern Ukraine through military incursions on behalf a Russian population opposed to the nationalistic anti-Russian Kyiv regime that emerged in the Maidan Revolution that year.

The events in Ukraine, including the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, left countries with a high ethnic Russian population feeling vulnerable.

Is Russia confined to its post-Soviet territorial border, or do Russians in the “near abroad” lend support to the nationalist proposition that Russia extends beyond this “artificial” demarcation? With Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, this is no longer a theoretical question.

Meanwhile, the still geographically enormous Russian Federation contains millions of non-ethnic Russian nationalities, especially in the Caucasus and in Siberia and the far east.

The country’s overall population in the 2021 census was reported at 144.7 million, or 147.2 million if Ukraine’s Crimea is included. Of these, only 105.6 million, or 71.5 per cent, are ethnically Russian.

The Russian state acknowledges 21 ethnic republics named for their titular majority. Many chafe under Russian rule, particular Muslims peoples such as the Chechens and Tatars.

The Chechens took advantage of post-Soviet Russian weakness in the 1990s to fight two bloody wars for independence before finally being defeated. Tatarstan retains such a large degree of autonomy that it is a virtual de facto state.

Still, the governing system of President Putin “is based on a fear of ethnic separatism,” asserts sociologist Guzel Yusupova, a visiting professor at Carleton University.

“This has been a major factor in how we view diversity,” she remarked. “In our country, diversity is associated with danger -- migrants are drug traffickers, Muslims are associated with terrorism, ethnic activists seek the destruction of Russia, and so on.”

For years, state propaganda has stressed patriotism and unity. Constitutional amendments adopted in 2020 bolstered the identity of Russians as the country’s “state-forming” nation and the primacy of the Russian language. The Russian Federation has veered towards an increasingly ethnic version of nationalism.