its president Russia, Vladimir Putintoday approved a new foreign policy doctrine based on the concept of the “Russian world”, an ideology used by conservatives in his country to justify interventions abroad in support of the Russian-speaking population.

The 31-page “humanitarian policy” doctrine, released as the war in Ukraine enters its seventh month, says that Russia must protect and promote the traditions and ideals of the “Russian world.”

Although presented as a moderate strategy, it includes ideas about politics and religion that some hardliners have used to justify the Russian military’s takeover of Ukrainian territory and support for pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

“The Russian Federation provides support to compatriots living abroad in protecting their rights, protecting their interests and preserving their Russian cultural identity,” it says. He notes that Russia’s ties with the Russian-speaking population abroad have strengthened its image in the international arena as a “democratic country striving to create a multipolar world.”

For years, Putin has tried to highlight the “tragic fate” – in his words – of some 25 million members of the Russian minority, who found themselves away from their “mother” homeland, in independent states, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. in 1991, a fact he called “a geopolitical catastrophe”.

Russia still regards the former Soviet expanse from the Baltic to Central Asia as its legitimate sphere of influence. Diametrically opposed, of course, is the position of the vast majority of the former Soviet republics and the West.

The new foreign policy doctrine calls on Russia to strengthen cooperation with the Slavic peoples, China and India, as well as strengthen ties with the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

It also says Moscow should further deepen its ties with Abkhazia and Ossetia — two breakaway provinces from Georgia that Moscow recognized as independent after the 2008 war — as well as with the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the country’s east. Ukraine.

^{Source: APE-MEB, Reuters}