Russian irredentism (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/or 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 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 civilisations by synthesising nationalism with nostalgic visions of history, memory, and religion."
From roughly the 16th century to the 20th century, the Russian Empire followed an expansionist policy. 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.
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. 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.
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Novorossiya or New Russia (Новороссия, nəvɐˈrosjɪjə; Novorosiia, [novoroˈsijɐ]), also referred to as the Union of People's Republics (Soyuz narodnykh respublik; Союз народних республік, [soˈjuz nɐˈrodnɪx resˈpublik]), 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. The concept of "Novorossiya" emerged in public discourse along with the beginning of conflict in east Ukraine.
Russian imperialism includes the policy and ideology of power exerted by Russia, as well as its antecedent states, over other countries and external territories. This includes the conquests of the Russian Empire, the imperial actions of the Soviet Union (as Russia is considered its main successor state), as well as those of the modern Russian Federation. Some postcolonial scholars have noted the lack of attention given to Russian and Soviet imperialism in the discipline.
On 24 February 2022, in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War which began in 2014. The invasion has killed tens of thousands on both sides. Russian forces have been responsible for mass civilian casualties and for torturing captured Ukrainian soldiers. By June 2022, about 8 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced. More than 8.2 million had fled the country by May 2023, becoming Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. Extensive environmental damage, widely described as ecocide, contributed to food crises worldwide.