A new foreign policy doctrine based on the concept of a “Russian world” – a conceptual framework used by extremists to justify intervention in foreign countries with significant Russian speakers – was unveiled by President Vladimir Putin.
The 31-page “humanitarian policy” says Russia must “protect, preserve and advance the traditions and ideals of the Russian world.”
The idea was included as official policy on Monday and was presented as a kind of soft power strategy, Reuters news agency reports.
The policy has been used in the past to justify Moscow’s occupation of parts of Ukraine and support for pro-Russian separatist entities in the country’s east.
“The Russian Federation provides support to its compatriots living abroad in the fulfillment of their rights, to ensure the protection of their interests and the preservation of their Russian cultural identity,” the policy states.
He also points out that Russia’s ties with its compatriots abroad allowed it to “strengthen on the international stage its image as a democratic country striving to create a multipolar world.”
The policy calls for further deepening its ties with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic – two separatist entities in eastern Ukraine, where war continues to rage.
The new policy further states that Moscow should consolidate its cooperation with the Slavic nations, China and India and further strengthen its ties with the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.
For years, Putin has highlighted the “tragic fate” of those millions of ethnic Russians who lived in the newly independent states after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—an event he described as a geopolitical catastrophe.
The Kremlin has continued to claim former Soviet societies, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its legitimate sphere of influence, which has been strongly opposed by many of those countries and the West.
(With data from agencies)
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