'The Russian World': What Are the Purposes of the New Decree of Russia?

On September 6, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree approving a new doctrine of his country's foreign policy based on what is known as the "Russian World" to justify his country's intervention abroad in support of Russian speakers, as happened in Ukraine.

This doctrine came in a 31-page document called "Humanitarian Policy," stating that Russia should "protect, ensure and promote the traditions and ideals of the Russian world."

The document, which says that "the Russian Federation provides support to its citizens living abroad to obtain their rights, ensure the protection of their interests and preserve their Russian cultural identity," devotes political and religious ideas to justifying the Russian invasion of states that were "Soviet."

It looks like a new Russian attempt to resurrect the Soviet Union, but according to a Russian "ethno-Orthodox" doctrine and foundations, not communism.

Since Putin assumed the presidency of Russia in 2012, he has already declared and sought to restore Moscow's control over the former Soviet republics under various pretenses, some ethnic (gathering Russians) and some security (protecting Russian national security).

Putin, who as a young Soviet intelligence officer saw the collapse of the Soviet Union now trying to rebuild a bloc similar to the one he saw disintegrating.

When asked as he ran for president for the second time in March 2018 about the historical event in Russia that he wanted to change, he immediately replied to the "collapse of the Soviet Union," working for KGB at the time, and described its collapse as "the biggest disaster."

His most notable statement about his desire to be resurrected was his statement during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 17, 2022, that "the Soviet Union is a Russian historical land."

For years, he has been highlighting what he describes as the tragic fate of some 25 million people of Russian origin who found themselves living outside Russia in newly independent states when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

The former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics consisted of present-day Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Moldova, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Estonia.

Russia continued to claim that the countries of the former Soviet Union, from the Baltic to Central Asia, were their legitimate sphere of influence, an idea that many of these countries, as well as the West, strongly resisted.

 

'Russian World'

"Russian world" is a concept that means social totalitarianism associated with Russian cultures, such as traditions, history, language, and diaspora.

The concept was first coined by the Russian scientist Russkiy Mir, who spoke of Russians living in a "divided nation" and highlighted "aspirations to restore Russia's historical unity."

Mir believes that there is a "vast Russian civilization" that must be protected from outside powers, especially from the West. When Putin invaded Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014, he invoked Mir's saying of the "Russian world."

He also justified his recognition of the "independence" of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are under the control of pro-Moscow Russian separatists, in February 2022 by saying that "the two republics are part of the Donbas region controlled by Russian-speakers."

Striking in Putin's statements and justifications for the Kyiv invasion was his talk of "Ukraine's marginalization of the Russian language" and "violation of the rights of Russian Orthodox Christians," as the Orthodox churches of Russia and Ukraine clash.

When Putin says "Russia," he does not mean a country called the "Russian Federation" within its current borders, but rather any place where Russians live.

He means any place where Russian is spoken, even by a small minority, and any place where he feels the influence of Moscow or the Russians.

The New York Times reported on May 21, 2022, that Putin relied on Mir's theory, and Russian Patriarch Kirill I provided him with a religious-nationalist mixture.

The latter combines a religious and nationalist vision to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

Sergei Chapnin, a researcher in Orthodox Christian studies at Fordham University, was quoted by the New York Times as saying that "the patriarch managed to sell the concept of traditional values, and the concept of Russkiy Mir, to Putin, who in turn was looking for a conservative ideology."

It explained that Kirill "aspires to expand the influence of his church, following an ideology that portrays Moscow as the third Rome" based on a fifteenth-century idea, which says that "that is the destiny of the Orthodox Church, in which Putin's Russia will become the spiritual center of the true church after Rome and Constantinople."

On April 13, 2022, The Conversation revealed a poll it conducted that showed that the majority of the Russian people are nostalgic for the days of the Soviet Union to expand Russia's borders and supports the view that Putin's goal in invading Ukraine is to regain the territory of the Soviet Union.

The poll showed that "Soviet identity" declined among the general Russian population after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 but began to increase in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea and supported Ukraine's separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk.

The poll, which looked at Putin's entire tenure, also revealed that by 2021, nearly 50 percent of those surveyed said they belonged to the "Soviet Union," not the Russian union.

It explained that Putin's popularity and the people's support for him "are based on the economic and cultural foundations of Soviet identity" that he promotes.

In a previous article published by the Russian presidency on July 12, 2021, Putin wrote what appeared to be his vision of interfering in and controlling all former Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Kazakhstan, entitled "Putin's Vision."

This vision is based on the claim of the need to protect Russia and its neighbors against what it considers "destabilizing effects led by the United States and NATO, supporting and encouraging anti-government extremists and revolutions in the region."

Putin claimed, "All these republics that joined the former Soviet Union had to return the gifts they received upon exit," any land they acquired in Soviet times.

It is the same logic with which Putin called Ukraine a "fabricated country" as he spoke with former U.S. President George W. Bush on July 19, 2018, according to the Washington Post.

When popular protests took place on the streets of Kazakhstan on January 2, 2021, and escalated into armed clashes, Putin warned that "Russia will not allow color revolutions planned by the West in the former Soviet republics."

An analysis by The Conversation on January 7, 2022, said Russia's military intervention in Kazakhstan "may be a scenario or Russian application of the rules of the game that it intends to follow in Ukraine, which it has been threatening to invade for months," which has already happened later.

Russian leader Putin is using the same "rules of the game" he used for nearly a decade to threaten Ukraine's sovereignty in Kazakhstan, to claim that it threatens Russia's security as he seeks to regain control of the former Soviet republics.

An analysis by the Atlantic Council website on January 6, 2022, warned that "President Vladimir Putin's goal of restoring Russian influence in the post-Soviet space is not limited to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova."

 

Institutionalization of 'Eurasianism'

Observers see the new doctrine as a roadmap for building Russian soft power in the world, as well as the result of "institutionalizing the theories of the thinkers surrounding Putin," led by the theories of Alexander Dugin, nicknamed the "brain" of the Russian president, "Putin's Rasputin."

Dugin, an extremist thinker and writer, advocates that Moscow should control Russian-speaking areas of Georgia, eastern Ukraine, and Crimea, as well as the Baltic states, to be their line of defense from Western threats.

Dugin claims that liberalism, freedom, and democracy are ideas alien to Russian culture and also believes that Russia is culturally closer to Asia than to Europe and therefore adopts a new ultra-nationalist ideology based on the idea of the "New Eurasian."

Dugin, therefore, promotes the concept of "Eurasian civilization," which means the civilizational commonality between the cultures of the peoples of Europe and Asia, in contrast to the liberal Western "Atlantic civilization," which he considers an imminent danger to humanity.

He believes that the triumph of Eurasian values over the principles of "Atlantic civilization" is a historical imperative and explains this by believing that Western culture is disintegrating itself, according to the Turkish website TRT on September 7, 2022.

He continues to advocate the creation of a totalitarian, illiberal Eurasian empire stretching from the edges of the Atlantic Ocean in the west, to the Urals in the east of Russia, with the annexation of Ukraine and Finland to support his idea of annexing the territories inhabited by Russian-speaking peoples.

Dugin also sees geopolitics playing an important role alongside Russian military power and what he calls "Russian culture and civilizational heritage" in building a great Russian nation more than the rest.

This is according to his theory called "The Fourth Political Theory," according to which Putin drew up his domestic and foreign policy, according to the BBC's website on August 21, 2022.

Alexander Dugin (Putin's mind) serves as an adviser to key political and military figures within the Kremlin alongside his work as a university professor, writer, and philosopher.

He is said to have filled Putin's mind with the idea of restoring Russia's great glories and invading Ukraine.

Dugin wields strong political influence within the Kremlin, the Duma, and at the academic level, is one of the most prominent theorists of the idea of "Russian nationalism" and has served as an adviser to the Speaker of the State Duma, Gennady Seleznyov.

He is currently an active member of the ruling United Russia party, the founder of the Bolshevik National Front and the Russian Eurasia Party, and his son was also a general in Soviet intelligence, according to the British newspaper The Guardian on August 21, 2022.

Since 2014, the EU has imposed sanctions on Alexandre Dugin for promoting the ideas of the "Eurasian movement" (a coalition between Europe and Asia under Russian leadership) espoused by part of the French far right.

It was remarkable that Putin proclaimed his new faith 17 days after Daria, a journalist and young political expert daughter of Alexander Dugin, who promotes the expansionist doctrine of Russia, was killed on August 20, 2022, in a car bombing.

She and her father are staunch supporters of Russia's military operation in Ukraine as part of the Russian Federation or the former Soviet Union, and Moscow blamed the bombing on Kyiv, which denied any involvement.

Her father, the famous Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, is believed to be the intended target because he was going to ride with his daughter in the same car but moved to another at the last minute and was seen looking at his daughter's burning car later.