Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

The rising influence of the Russian church both domestically and abroad can be attributed to the strong revival of Orthodoxy since the 1990s. Though all religions, including the Russian church, were forcibly oppressed during the Soviet era, from 1991 to 2008 the share of Russian adults identifying as Orthodox Christian rose from 31 percent to 72 percent.²⁷ Globally there are about 150 million adherents to the Russian Orthodox Church, which though autocephalous (autonomous) is part of the Eastern Orthodox Church with some 250 million followers. The church, headed by the Moscow Patriarchate, exercises jurisdiction over most Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the former republics of the USSR and their diasporas abroad. Out of all Eastern Orthodox churches in the post-Soviet states, only the autocephalous Georgian church is independent from Moscow.²⁸ Meanwhile, the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is the world’s oldest national church and is part of Oriental rather than Eastern Orthodoxy, has historically remained both de jure and de facto free from Moscow’s clout. Due to its vast reach and rising influence, however, the Russian church has become an important element of Russia’s soft power efforts abroad and an inseparable part of the reimperialization trajectory, as will be seen in the case study chapters.

STAGE 2: HUMANITARIAN POLICIES

The rising prominence of human rights in international law has given rise to a “humanitarian dimension” in Russian foreign policy that constitutes the second stage of the trajectory. To date, this humanitarian dimension has been understudied. The very understanding of “humanitarian” policies differs in the West and Russia, where gumanitarnoye sotrudnichestvo (humanitarian cooperation) is used interchangeably with “public diplomacy” and refers to “people to people” policies, “NGO diplomacy,” and “cultural diplomacy.”²⁹ The most recent Russian Foreign Policy Review of 2007 noted four aspects of the “humanitarian trend” of foreign policy: consular issues, human rights protection, cultural and scientific cooperation, and compatriot policies.³⁰ However, to elaborate my proposed reimperialization paradigm, I will examine Russia’s humanitarian policies separately from complementary tools like soft power, compatriot policies, and consular efforts like passportization. Instead, I will include here Moscow’s escalation of human rights questions of Russian compatriots, assistance to the Russian diaspora abroad, and even peacekeeping operations.

The relationship of the Russian Federation to human rights has been somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand, Moscow has rejected outside criticisms of its own human rights violations. It has called for regional standards of human rights to meet the cultural and historical needs of particular societies, rather than standards imposed from the outside. On the other hand, Moscow still proclaims the universal nature of such rights. In practice, Russia mainly raises the issue of human rights on the international stage in relation to the rights of ethnic Russians, Russian speakers, or Russian citizens residing in the countries of its near abroad. In contrast to the norms of the international humanitarian community that stipulate that humanitarian assistance should be guided by principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence from political, economic, military, and other objectives, Russia’s efforts to protect human rights are closely intertwined with the notion of assisting and protecting the rights of its compatriots.³¹ Most often, humanitarian efforts serve as a pretext to advance Russia’s geopolitical aims. Indeed, like Russia’s version of soft power, Russia’s humanitarian policies are also a unique construct.