Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

While the word “compatriot” generally refers to a fellow countryman or countrywoman, the equivalent Russian word, sootechestvennik, has come to denote the Russian diaspora residing outside the Russian Federation and encompasses ethnic, cultural, linguistic, political, and even spiritual connotations. The term most often refers to ethnic Russians residing in the former states of the Soviet Union, but Moscow has also broadened it by including Russian speakers who may be of various other nationalities such as Ukrainians, Belarusians, Tatars, Abkhazians, Ossetians, and other peoples that were Russified during the Soviet era or even those who are not Russophones but have other cultural, religious, or historical ties to Russia. The origins and evolution of this nebulous “compatriot” category and terminology as well as the development of Russia’s compatriot policies since the 1990s will be examined closely in the following chapter. In addition that chapter will demonstrate how under Putin’s regime the Russian compatriots have been increasingly conceptualized as a potential resource to be employed in foreign policy. Russia has been described as using its compatriots since the 2000s as a “geopolitical entity,” most often with the aim to promote its own national interests rather than those of compatriots.⁴⁹ Moscow does so irrespective of the laws and preferences of compatriots’ home countries or the compatriots themselves. And while there may be genuine sincerity in Russia’s cultural and nationalist efforts to claim its diaspora, these efforts pale in comparison to Moscow’s manipulation of compatriots as a tool of influence over and territorial aggression against neighboring states. This section will briefly demonstrate how Moscow’s compatriot policies fit with the other items of Russia’s tool kit. Indeed, compatriots are the crux of Moscow’s reimperialization policies in its near abroad. They are the thread that ties together many other means of Russian influence.

Russian compatriots not only figure in all stages of the reimperialization trajectory, they are the driving force behind it. For instance, Russia’s soft power over neighboring states stems in great part from the presence of the sizable Russian and Russian-speaking minorities. At the same time, Moscow’s work to maintain soft power over those minorities in some ways precludes their successful integration into their states of residence while the perceived grievances of Russian compatriots enables Russia to engage in human rights efforts. These grievances, termed “human rights abuses” are then used as a pretext in subsequent stages of passportization, support for separatist movements, and finally efforts at protection and usurpation of territories. As the case studies will demonstrate, the human rights abuses endured by Russian compatriots are often blatantly invented, and certainly their claims are disseminated to exacerbate tensions in neighboring states via Russian information warfare campaigns. In the final stages of Moscow’s reimperialization trajectory, as in the cases of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Crimea, compatriot protection is given as a reason for Russia’s military intervention.

The complex interlinkage of the compatriot issue with Russia’s other tools and goals of foreign policy can be seen in the various strategic government bodies that oversee and fund the compatriot policy, including the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Culture, and Education. However, possibly the most important federal institution in this area has been the Federal Agency for Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation (known for short as Rossotrudnichestvo). This agency was established with the explicit aim of “maintaining Russia’s influence in the Commonwealth of Independent States, and to foster friendly ties for the advancement of Russia’s political and economic interests in foreign states.”⁵⁰ Rossotrudnichestvo may well constitute one of the most ambitious instruments to advance Russian interests abroad: since its establishment in 2008 it has rapidly expanded opening 93 branch offices in 80 countries.⁵¹ In 2013 President Putin signed an order to increase the agency’s budget from 2 billion rubles (approximately $37 million) to 9.5 billion rubles (approximately $174 million) by 2020, thus making it one of the most expensive instruments of support for compatriots abroad.⁵²