Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire

When Vladimir Putin was sworn in as president in May 2000, standing next to the increasingly unwell Yeltsin, he looked the picture of youth, vigor, and strength—a new hope for Russia. Only in his late forties, Putin had already made a meteoric rise from the circle of Yeltsin’s loyalists and had served as prime minister, head of the FSB (KGB’s successor), and first deputy chief of the presidential staff, among other posts. Nonetheless, in May 2000, few could have thought that this little-known man, who had only arrived on Moscow’s political scene in 1996, would come to rule Russia for decades as both president and prime minister. In fact, if Putin wins reelection in 2018 for his fourth presidential term, he will have effectively been in power from December 1999 to May 2024—a total of nearly twenty-five years, which approaches Stalin’s twenty-nine-year tenure.

During his rule, Putin has built on Stalin’s ethnic policies and Yeltsin’s diaspora laws to shape Russia’s compatriot policies as a powerful tool of foreign policy and a means to reimperialize territories of the former Soviet republics. Putin’s policy direction was likely highly influenced by another Yeltsin-era ideologue of Russian compatriot policy, influential political scientist and head of the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy Sergey Karaganov, who served as a presidential adviser from 2001 to 2013, and was named one of the world’s top-hundred public intellectuals by Foreign Policy magazine in 2005.⁷¹ In 1992 he published an article proclaiming what was later named the “Karaganov Doctrine” that suggested that Russia should play an active postimperial role and protect Russian speakers.⁷² Although Karaganov did not use the term “compatriots,” he fully captured the importance of not only ethnic Russians but also Russian speakers in foreign policy. According to Karaganov in 1992, “everything must be done to keep Russian speakers in those regions where they live right now. Not only because we cannot afford to welcome large crowds of refugees, but also because we must leave there strings of influence with a further perspective.”⁷³ It seems that Putin borrowed Karaganov’s ideas, which gained full momentum only in the 2000s.⁷⁴ Over the course of Putin’s rule some fifteen documents and policies would be adopted (see Table 2), and numerous other initiatives taken in relation to Russian compatriots.

In January 2000 when Vladimir Putin assumed office as acting president he adopted the “National Security Concept of the Russian Federation,” which had already been formulated and approved under the outgoing Yeltsin in December 1999. While the main emphasis of this document was not on compatriots, it did strategically reference Russian citizens abroad. The document stated that the foreign policy of the Russian Federation should spearhead the protection of “the legitimate rights and interests of Russian citizens abroad, including by taking political, economic, and other measures.”⁷⁵ Certainly the protection of one’s citizens by political, economic, and other means is nothing out of the ordinary for most states. The policy, though, takes on new dimensions in light of the fact that since the 1990s the Russian Foreign Ministry sought to establish dual citizenship in the former Soviet republics, thus turning the Russian diaspora into citizens who could then be protected. This two-fold thrust of Russian foreign policy to (1) provide Russian citizenship to the Russian compatriots in the near abroad and (2) protect the “legitimate rights and interests” of Russian citizens abroad, is set to remain for the foreseeable future. Indeed, in May 2009, less than a year after the Russo-Georgian war fought over protecting Russian citizens and compatriots, an updated document, “Russia’s National Security Strategy to 2020,” reiterated and reinforced the effective defense of the rights and interests of Russian citizens abroad.