\u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d<\/strong> is a Russian quasi-ideology aimed at the expansion of influence abroad and uniting the states considered by the Kremlin as its backyard on the basis of Russian language common history in the Moscow\u2019s perception and Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As a political concept it gained some importance in 2000s, particularly after Vladimir Putin started using it in his public speeches, making an appeal to the \u201ccompatriots\u201d abroad. At the initial stages ROC played a significant role in the development and promotion of the concept, which supported the Kremlin-designed confrontation between the \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d and Western democracies that are consistently portrayed as hostile on civilizational level and as attempting to enforce their \u201cdestructive values\u201d on the other states.\u00a0 With \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d Putin\u2019s Russia attempts to establish itself as a civilization-forming state and as a leading geopolitical actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the Russian political elite started to increasingly rely on the concept, it became more linguocentric. Russian language is established as a key unifying factor, and it correlates with the foreign policy of the Russian Federation, the government of which has repeatedly used manipulations around language issues as a pretext for aggressive actions, including military conflict.<\/strong> The Kremlin defines anyone who, according to Vladimir Putin, \u201cspeaks and thinks in Russian\u201d, as a part of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d. On such grounds Dmitriy Peskov, the spokesperson of the Russian President, has named Ukraine as a part of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d in February 2021. It yet again underlines the expansionist nature of the concept and refusal to agree with the national self-determination of other states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0Russian language and its promotion is among the key focus points in a series of the Kremlin\u2019s strategic documents, including the National Security Strategy and the Foreign Policy Concept of Russian Federation. National Security Strategy defines<\/a> the diminishing role of Russian language in the world as one of the crucial threats along with \u201cthe erosion of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values and the weakening of the unity of the Russian Federation\u2019s multinational people by means of external cultural and information expansion (including the spread of poor-quality mass cultural products), propaganda of permissiveness and violence<\/em>\u201d.<\/strong> Such a definition of threats correlates with the basin principles of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d, which, therefore, is enshrined in the main strategic documents that establish the governmental policy at the highest level. It also indicates the second vector of the concept\u2019s exploitation, aimed not only at the expansion of influence abroad, but also at solidifying the multinational country from top downward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d gained even more importance in 2014, when it became one of the ideological components of the Russian aggression in Crimea and Donbas and was widely exploited by the Kremlin-controlled media as an explanation of the illegal \u201creferendum\u201d and as basis of the \u201cNovorossiya\u201d project in the eastern Ukraine to justify both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0<\/strong>Promotion of \u201crusskiy Mir\u201d is a component of Russian foreign policy and is implemented by a number of actors. They include the networks of the local agents of influence, which may promote specific elements of the concept, thus raising the level of its acceptance by a target society as a whole. <\/strong>Crucial role is played by the institutions that promote Russian \u201csoft power\u201d abroad, in particular \u201cRossotrudnichestvo\u201d (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) and \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d foundation, established by Vladimir Putin\u2019s decree in 2007. The foundation has opened approximately 20 centers in Ukraine with the focus on south-eastern regions. Geographically their location coincided with the \u201cNovorossiya\u201d project the Kremlin tried to implement in 2014-15. After the start of Russian aggression the centers were closed, however, both the foundation and Rossotrudnichestvo keep functioning in Ukraine, relying on a network of proxy organizations. These organizations are involved in promotion of historical and territorial revisionism, Russian disinformation narratives and hatred towards Ukrainian state, polarizing society and, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, often serving as a fa\u00e7ade for the activities of the intelligence services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0An important role in the promotion of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d was played by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) as a subsidiary of ROC. Leader of ROC, Patriarch Kirill,<\/strong> has claimed<\/a>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow can the Russian church not be worried, today and in the future, about the Russkiy Mir that grows from the roots of Rus and the nations of which have been entrusted by God to its pastoral care? Not to do this would be to disobey God himself<\/em>\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n ROC remains inextricably connected to the expansion and strengthening of this quasi-ideology, ensuring its moral and ethical, in the Kremlin\u2019s perception, basis and granting access to a large conservative audience susceptible to such ideas. Leader of ROC insists<\/a> that <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d is that very special civilization, to which people who call themselves by different names belong \u2013 Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians. People, who have no relation to the Slavic world but who have accepted the cultural component and values of this world as their own, may belong to it<\/em>\u201d. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Promotion of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d by the religious institutions is particularly convenient for the Kremlin, as it allows discrediting any attempts to limit it as interference into religious issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0It is also worth mentioning that as the concept, first of all, serves political interests of the Russian authorities, it is populist and adaptive. In such a way under the umbrella of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d a number of cultural and historical narratives are united, even though they initially may seem to have no relation to it.<\/strong> Still, in the end, rewriting history with the focus on whitewashing the image of USSR, appropriating the victory over Nazism, labeling every attempt to critically evaluate history as \u201cfascist\u201d also work in favor of \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d. Putin\u2019s Russia grants itself with the messianic title of the vanquisher of absolute evil \u2013 and with the opportunity to fight against what it considers fascism again. Systemic cultural appropriation also adds to the picture. It enables the portrayal of formerly colonized states as having a poor culture, with is partially appropriated and partially discredited, while \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d is pictured as a culturally rich opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kremlin consistently discredits pro-democratic policies in target societies, employing disinformation and promotion of destructive narratives, then attempting to offer \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d as an appealing alternative to such policies. <\/strong>Taking this into account, effective response to the threat should include not only the limitation of activities perpetrated by the Kremlin\u2019s agents of influence, which directly and indirectly promote the concept. It should also include strategic, fact-based positive narrativization that will serve as the best immunity for the target societies – and Ukraine in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00b9 National Security Strategy of Russia before 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow the Kremlin promotes \u201cRusskiy Mir\u201d in Ukraine<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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