Agnia Grigas - Beyond Crimea

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. 71In 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. 72Although 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.” 73It seems that Putin borrowed Karaganov’s ideas, which gained full momentum only in the 2000s. 74Over 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.” 75Certainly 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.

Meanwhile, before the compatriots could be turned into Russian citizens by the methods used in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moldova’s Transnistria, and Ukraine’s Crimea, the question of how to define and assist them still remained. In June 2000 Putin approved a new document, “The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation”—the first foreign policy document where compatriots were explicitly mentioned. It stated that “the Russian Federation will seek to obtain adequate guarantees for the rights and freedoms of compatriots in states where they permanently reside and to maintain and develop comprehensive ties with them and their organizations.” 76Two months later a clearer definition of compatriots was finally offered. In August 2001, the “Concept of Support to Compatriots Abroad by the Russian Federation in the Current Period” was released. For the first time ever, the definition of compatriots did not evoke the Soviet Union, and thus former Soviet citizens or their descendants were no longer conceptualized as compatriots. Furthermore, compatriots did not need to be former citizens of Russia or their descendants. Instead, the focus was solely on having some connection to Russia, as compatriots were defined as “constantly living abroad, but having historical, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and spiritual ties with Russia, trying to preserve their Russian authenticity and having a need to maintain contacts and cooperation with Russia.” 77Again, the definition was broad and malleable thanks to the deployment of fluid and abstract concepts such as cultural or spiritual connections to Russia. Though the new definition was somewhat narrower due to the exclusion of citizens of the Soviet Union, it included a much broader group of people than solely ethnic Russians or Russian speakers abroad and seemingly evoked the peoples of the historic Russian empire.

Source: Compiled by the author.