Vladimir Putin has authorized a 31-page “humanitarian policy” which says Russia ought to “protect, safeguard and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian World”.
The overseas coverage idea of a “Russian World” is a notion that hardliners have used to justify intervening overseas to help Russian audio system, resembling in components of Ukraine.
It implies that the thought is now enshrined in official coverage, although it was introduced as a comfortable energy technique.
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The new coverage acknowledged that Moscow ought to additional deepen its ties with the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic – two breakaway entities in jap Ukraine, the place the battle continues to rage.
It additionally mentioned it ought to strengthen its hyperlinks extra with Abkhazia and Ossetia, two Georgian areas recognised as unbiased by Moscow after its battle in opposition to Georgia in 2008.
And the coverage acknowledged Russia ought to improve cooperation with Slavic nations, China and India, and additional push its ties to the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.
West Slavs are in Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, East Slavs are in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, whereas South Slavs are in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a lot of Eastern Bloc international locations broke away from the USSR and have become unbiased, however round 25 million ethnic Russians discovered themselves dwelling exterior Russia.
Mr Putin referred to as the collapse of the USSR the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” and for years he has been highlighting what he sees because the tragic destiny of these hundreds of thousands.
It was one in every of his predecessors, Mikhail Gorbachev, who failed to stop the break-up and who died aged 91 final week.
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Moscow has continued to view the previous Soviet lands, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its respectable sphere of affect – a notion strongly resisted by a lot of these international locations in addition to by the West.
The new coverage mentioned the Russian Federation “provides support to its compatriots living abroad in the fulfilment of their rights, to ensure the protection of their interests and the preservation of their Russian cultural identity”.
It mentioned that Russia’s ties with its compatriots overseas allowed it to “strengthen on the international stage its image as a democratic country striving for the creating of a multi-polar world”.
Source: information.sky.com”