Russian irredentism (Russian : Русский ирредентизм), sometimes expressed by the term Greater Russia (Великая Россия), refers to territorial claims made on behalf of the Russian Federation to parts of the former Russian Empire and the former Soviet Union. It seeks to politically incorporate Russians who are living in territories that fall outside of Russia's modern borders.
Since it began in 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian War has been described as a culmination of Russia's irredentist policies towards Ukraine. Specific examples of these irredentist policies being implemented in the Ukrainian conflict include the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 [1] and the Russian annexation of southeastern Ukraine in 2022, with the latter having occurred amidst the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Specifically looking at the viewpoints of post-Soviet Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Erdi Ozturk, a professor at London Metropolitan University, has commented that irredentist ideology relies upon a "distinction between civilizations by synthesizing nationalism with nostalgic visions of history, memory, and religion." [2]
From roughly the 16th century to the 20th century, the Russian Empire followed an expansionist policy. [n 1] Few of these actions had irredentist justifications, though the conquest of parts of the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus in 1877 to bring Armenian Christians under the protection of the Tsar may represent one example. [3] Russia has also had a historical interest in Constantinople (Istanbul).
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was thought that the Russian Federation had given up on plans of territorial expansion or kin-state nationalism, despite some 25 million ethnic Russians living in neighboring countries outside Russia. [4] Stephen M. Saideman and R. William Ayres assert that Russia followed a non-irredentist policy in the 1990s despite some justifications for irredentist policies—one factor disfavoring irredentism was a focus by the ruling interest in consolidating power and the economy within the territory of Russia. [5] Furthermore, a stable policy of irredentism popular with the electorate was not found, and politicians proposing such ideas did not fare well electorally. [6] Russian nationalist politicians tended to focus on internal threats (i.e. "outsiders") rather than on the interests of Russians outside the federation. [7]
"Russia's border doesn't end anywhere".
—Vladimir Putin, 24 November 2016 [8]
It has been proposed that the annexation of Crimea in 2014 proves Russia's adherence to irredentism today. [9] [10] [11] [12] After the event in Crimea, the Transnistrian authorities requested Russia to annex Transnistria. [13] [14] [15]
The annexation of Crimea led to a new wave of Russian nationalism, with large parts of the Russian far right movement aspiring to annex even more land from Ukraine, including the unrecognized Novorossiya. [16] Analyst Vladimir Socor proposed that Russian president Vladimir Putin's speech after the annexation of Crimea was a de facto "manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism". [17] After international sanctions were imposed against Russia in early 2014, within a year the "Novorossiya" project was suspended: on 1 January 2015, the founding leadership announced the project has been put on hold, and on 20 May the constituent members announced the freezing of the political project. [18] [19]
On 12 July 2021, the official website for the Office of the President of Russia published an essay On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians written by Vladimir Putin in which he describes historically that "Russians and Ukrainians were one people". [20]
On 21 February 2022, Putin recognized the independence of pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as their irredentist claims to the Donbas region of Ukraine, and sent Russian troops into Ukraine. [21] [22]
On 24 February, Russia formally invaded Ukraine, [23] which is seen as a continuation of Russia's irredentism at the expense of Ukraine. [24] Parallels were made between Putin's irredentism during the Ukrainian War and Slobodan Milosevic's irredentism during the Bosnian War. [25]
On 1 March 2022, images emerged in the press showing Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in front of a map which appeared to show invasion plans for Moldova where Russia already has soldiers in the breakaway region of Transnistria. [26] [27]
On 27 March 2022, Leonid Pasechnik leader of the LPR said that the Luhansk People's Republic may hold a referendum to join Russia in the near future. [28] On 29 March, Denis Pushilin leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic talked about a similar possibility. [29] A day later, South Ossetian President Anatoly Bibilov announced his intention to begin legal proceedings in the near future for annexation by the Russian Federation. [30]
On 8 June 2022, a draft bill was submitted to the State Duma by a member of the ruling United Russia party proposing to repeal the Decree of the State Council of the Soviet Union "On the Recognition of the Independence of the Republic of Lithuania". [31] [32] [33] On 6 July 2022, amid the ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions, the speaker of Russia's State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin threatened to "claim back" Alaska if the US froze or seized Russian assets. [34]
On 19 September 2022, the public chambers of the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic appealed to their heads of state with a request to "immediately" hold a referendum on joining Russia. [35] [36] [37] Next day the People's Council of the Luhansk People's Republic scheduled a referendum on the republic's entry into Russia as a federal subject for 23–27 September. [38] Soon after, the People's Council of the Donetsk People's Republic announced that the referendum on the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation would be held on the same date. [39]
On 27 September 2022, during the 2022 annexation referendums in Russian-occupied Ukraine, according to the results released by Russian occupation authorities in Ukraine, the Donetsk People's Republic, the Luhansk People's Republic, as well as occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts overwhelmingly voted in favor of annexation, with 99.23%, 98.42%, 93.11% and 87.05% of support, respectively. It was also announced that the turnout exceeded 75% in each region and exceeded 97% in Donetsk Oblast. However, the voting has been widely dismissed as a sham referendum by Ukraine and much of the Western world. [40] [41]
On 30 September 2022, Putin announced in a speech [42] that Russia had annexed the four regions occupied during the conflict. [43]
Some Russian nationalists seek to annex parts of the "near abroad", such as the Baltic states. [44] Governor of the Russian occupation of Zaporizhzhia Oblast Yevgeny Balitsky has described how "all of the Baltics" were "all our lands, and our people live there," calling to "correct this...through the might of Russian weapons" and "get our people back, the former subjects of the Russian Empire". [45] Others also some fear potential escalation due to Russian irredentist aspirations in Northern Kazakhstan. [46]
Looking at the Russian efforts as a whole, the news network Al Jazeera has quoted University of San Francisco scholar Stephen Zunes as remarking, "The level of physical devastation and casualties thus far over a relatively short period is perhaps the [worst] in recent decades which, combined with the irredentist aims of the conquest, makes Russia’s war on Ukraine particularly reprehensible in the eyes of the international community." [2]
U.S. news publication The Washington Post has stated that the Russian government could start a chain reaction of irredentist mass violence, which then "could break the international order". [47]
These annexations and irredentist aspirations were declared illegal by the UN. On 12 October 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution ES-11/4 advocating for territorial integrity of Ukraine, with 143 nations voting in favor, 5 against and 35 abstaining. It condemned the "illegal so-called referendums" and the "attempted illegal annexation" and demanded that Russia immediately reverse its decisions and withdraw its forces from Ukraine. [48]
The republics are one type of federal subject of the Russian Federation. 21 republics are internationally recognized as part of Russia, another is under its de facto control. The original republics were created as nation states for ethnic minorities. The indigenous ethnicity that gives its name to the republic is called the titular nationality. However, due to centuries of Russian migration, a titular nationality may not be a majority of its republic's population.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in Russia.
The People's Militia of the Donetsk People's Republic and People's Militia of the Luhansk People's Republic are pro-Russian paramilitaries in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, under the overall control of the Russian Federation. They are also referred to as Russian separatist forces or Russian proxy forces. They were affiliated with the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) during the war in Donbas (2014–2022), the first stage of the Russo-Ukrainian War. They then supported the Russian Armed Forces against the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the 2022 Russian invasion. In September 2022, Russia annexed the DPR and LPR, and began integrating the paramilitaries into its armed forces. They are designated as terrorist groups by the government of Ukraine.
Denis Vladimirovich Pushilin is a politician from the Donbas region of Ukraine, who is serving as the Head of the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) since 2018. He holds the position in acting capacity ever since the Russian annexation of the DPR in 2022.
Referendums on the status of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, parts of Ukraine that together make up the Donbas region, were claimed to have taken place on 11 May 2014 in many towns under the control of the Russian-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. These referendums intended to legitimise the establishment of the so-called "republics", in the context of the Russian invasion of Crimea and rising pro-Russian unrest in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. In addition, a counter-referendum on accession to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was held in some Ukrainian-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The Luhansk People's Republic or Lugansk People's Republic is an internationally unrecognised republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitaries in 2014, and it initially operated as a breakaway state until it was annexed by Russia in 2022.
Novorossiya or New Russia, also referred to as the Union of People's Republics, was a project for a confederation between the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) in Eastern Ukraine, both of which were under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
Novorossiya is a historical name, used during the era of the Russian Empire for an administrative area that would later become the southern mainland of Ukraine: the region immediately north of the Black Sea and Crimea. The province fell largely within a slightly wider area known in Ukrainian as the Stepovyna "Steppe Land", or Nyz "Lower Land". The name Novorossiya, which means New Russia, entered official usage in 1764, after the Russian Empire conquered the Crimean Khanate, and annexed its territories, when Novorossiya Governorate was founded. Official usage of the name ceased after 1917, when the entire area was incorporated in the Ukrainian People's Republic.
Leonid Ivanovich Pasechnik is a Ukrainian-born politician who has served as Head of the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) since 2017. He holds the position in acting capacity ever since the illegal and unrecognized Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts in 2022. Pasechnik had previously held office as the LPR's Minister of State Security from 2014 to 2018.
From April 2014 until September 2022, the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) were two pro-Russian separatist states established in the Donbas, a historical region in easternmost Ukraine. Escalating tensions between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian government, which regarded the two states' secession as illegal, led to the protracted War in Donbas. While the DPR and the LPR remained unrecognized by the international community, they covertly received a substantial amount of financial and military support from neighbouring Russia.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been involved in territorial disputes with a number of countries. These disputes are primarily an aspect of the post-Soviet conflicts, and have led to some countries losing parts of their sovereign territory to what a large portion of the international community designates as a Russian military occupation. As such, these lands are commonly described as Russian-occupied territories, regardless of what their status is in Russian law. The term is applied to Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
The government of Transnistria, a breakaway state internationally recognized as part of Moldova, has requested annexation by Russia numerous times. Transnistria is a territory that separated itself from Moldova due to fear of a possible unification of the latter with Romania. This sparked the Transnistria War, in which Russian-backed Transnistria managed to stay separate from Moldova. Despite this, today Transnistria is legally and internationally considered part of Moldova.
2022 in Russia is the 31st year of the Russian Federation.
Donetsk People's Republic–Russia relations were bilateral relations between Russia and the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). The DPR is widely internationally unrecognized, with most of the international community regarding the DPR as a Russian military occupation of a portion of Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. The DPR was annexed by Russia on 30 September 2022; the DPR authorities willingly acceded to Russia, and the annexation is widely internationally unrecognized. From April 2014 to September 2022, the DPR portrayed itself as an independent state, and it was widely regarded as a puppet state of Russia by the international community.
Luhansk People's Republic–Russia relations were bilateral relations between Russia and the Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The LPR is widely internationally unrecognized, with most of the international community regarding the LPR as a Russian military occupation of a portion of Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast. The LPR was annexed by Russia on 30 September 2022; the LPR authorities willingly acceded to Russia, and the annexation is widely internationally unrecognized. From April 2014 to September 2022, the LPR portrayed itself as an independent state, and it was widely regarded as a puppet state of Russia by the international community.
The 2022 evacuation of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic refers to mass evacuation of the residents of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) to the Russian Federation starting in February 2022.
In late September 2022, in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian-installed officials in Ukraine staged so-called referendums on the annexation of occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia. They were widely described as sham referendums by commentators and denounced by various countries. The validity of the results of the referendums has been accepted by North Korea, and no other sovereign state.
On 30 September 2022, Russia, amid an ongoing invasion of Ukraine, unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around four Ukrainian oblasts – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. The boundaries of the areas to be annexed and their borders were not defined; Russian officials stated that they would be defined later. None of the oblasts were fully under Russian control at the time of the declaration, nor since. If limited to the areas then under Russian control the annexation would still be the largest in Europe since World War II.
This is a list article about flags that have been used by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine and in areas occupied by Russia and Russian-controlled forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Russo-Ukrainian War:
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The similarities between Russian and Serbian irredentism are astonishing. Back in the 1990s, Serbian nationalists parroted the claim that Bosnia historically belonged to Serbia, that we Bosniak Muslims were in fact Christian Serbs who were forcefully converted to Islam under the Ottomans, and that Bosnia—as an independent and sovereign country—would not survive without Serbian tutelage. So closely are Bosniak Muslims able to identify with Ukrainians that monetary donations have been collected and prayers held at Bosnian mosques for Ukraine's defense.
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