Russian imperialism#Russian colonial expansion

Montesquieu wrote that "The Moscovites cannot leave the empire" and they "are all slaves".{{rp|p=12}} Historian Alexander Etkind describes a phenomenon of "reversed gradient", where people living near the center of the Russian Empire experienced greater oppression than the ones on the edges.{{rp|pp=143–144}} Jean-Jacques Rousseau in turn argued that Poland was not free because of Russian imperialism.{{rp|p=12}} In 1836, Nikolai Gogol said that Saint Petersburg was "something similar to a European colony in America", remarking that there were as many foreigners as people of the native ethnicity.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=17}} According to Aleksey Khomyakov, the Russian elite was "a colony of eclectic Europeans, thrown into a country of savages" with a "colonial relationship" between the two.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=17-18}} A similar colonial aspect was identified by Konstantin Kavelin.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=19}}

Russian imperialism has been argued to be different from other European colonial empires due to its empire being overland rather than overseas, which meant that rebellions could be more easily put down, with some lands being reconquered soon after they were lost.{{Cite book |last=Herpen |first=Marcel H. Van |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q1IWCgAAQBAJ&q=putin's+wars |title=Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism |date=1 July 2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-5359-9 |edition=Kindle |pages=10 |language=en}}{{Rp|page=1}} The terrestrial basis of the empire has also been seen as a factor which made it more divided than sea-based ones due to the difficulties of communication and transport over land at the time.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=5}}

Russian imperialism has been linked to the labour-intensive and low productivity economic system based on serfdom and despotic rule, which required constant increase in the amount of land under cultivation to legitimise the rule and provide satisfaction to the subjects.{{cite book |last1=Herpen |first1=Marcel H. van |title=Putin's wars : the rise of Russia's new imperialism |date=2014 |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |isbn=9781442231368 |url=https://archive.org/details/putinswarsriseof0000herp}}{{rp|pp=17–18}} The political system in turn depended on land as a resource to reward officeholders, and thus the political elite made territorial expansion an intentional project.{{cn|date=August 2022}}

According to Vasily Klyuchevsky, Russia has the "history of a country that colonizes itself".{{Cite book |last=Etkind |first=Alexander |author-link=Alexander Etkind|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lpz5q44VVk0C&q=internal+colonization |title=Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience |date=29 April 2013 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-7456-7354-7 |edition=Kindle |pages=2 |language=en}} Vladimir Lenin saw Russia's underdeveloped territories as internal colonialism.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=20}} This concept had first been introduced in the context of Russia by August von Haxthausen in 1843.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=61}} Sergey Solovyov argued that this was because Russia "was not a colony that was separated from the metropolitan land by oceans".{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=63}} For Afanasy Shchapov, this process was primarily driven by ecological imperialism, whereby the fur trade and fishing were driving the conquest of Siberia and Alaska.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=66}} Other followers of Klyuchevsky identified the forms of colonization driven by military or monastic expansion, among others.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=68}} Pavel Milyukov meanwhile noted the violence of this self-colonizing process.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=69}} A similarity was later noted between Russian self-colonialism and the American frontier by Mark Bassin.{{Sfn|Etkind|2013|p=63}}

The territorial expansion of the empire gave the autocratic rulers of Russia additional legitimacy, while also giving the subjugated population a source of national pride.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=18}}} The legitimation of the empire was later done through different ideologies. After the Fall of Constantinople, Moscow named itself the third Rome, following the Roman and Byzantine Empires. In a panegyric letter to Grand Duke Vasili III composed in 1510, Russian monk Philotheus (Filofey) of Pskov proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth. No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!".Mashkov, A.D. [http://leksika.com.ua/10651009/legal/moskva_-_tretiy_rim Moscow is the Third Rome (МОСКВА – ТРЕТІЙ РИМ)]. Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia. This led to the concept of a messianic Orthodox Russian nation as the Holy Rus.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=55}}{{Rp|page=33}} Russia claimed to be the protector of Orthodox Christians as it expanded into the territories of the Ottoman Empire during wars such as the Crimean War.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=56}}{{Rp|page=34}}

After the victory of monarchist Coalition in 1815, Russia promulgated the Holy Alliance with Prussia and Austria to reinstate the divine right of kings and Christian values in European political life, as pursued by Alexander I under the influence of his spiritual adviser Baroness Barbara von Krüdener. It was written by the Tsar and edited by Ioannis Kapodistrias and Alexandru Sturdza.{{Cite journal |last1=Zorin |first1=A. L. (Andrei L.) |last2=Schlafly |first2=Daniel L |date=2003 |title="Star of the East": The Holy Alliance and European Mysticism |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/43119 |journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=313–342 |doi=10.1353/kri.2003.0031 |issn=1538-5000 |s2cid=159997980|url-access=subscription }} In the first draft Tsar Alexander I made appeals to mysticism through a proposed unified Christian empire, with a unified imperial army, that was seen as disconcerting by the other monarchies. Following revision, a more pragmatic version of the alliance was adopted by Russia, Prussia, and Austria.{{Cite web |last=Nations |first=United |title=Three Lessons of Peace: From the Congress of Vienna to the Ukraine Crisis |url=https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/three-lessons-peace-congress-vienna-ukraine-crisis |access-date=3 May 2022 |website=United Nations |language=en}} The document was called "an apocalypse of diplomacy" by French diplomat Dominique-Georges-Frédéric Dufour de Pradt. The Holy Alliance was largely used to suppress internal dissent, censoring the press and shutting down parliaments as part of "The Reaction".{{Synthesis inline|date=August 2022|reason=Neither of the sources relate Holy Alliance to Russian imperialism directly.}}

Under Nicholas I of Russia, Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality became the official state ideology.{{Cite journal |last=Riasanovsky |first=Nicholas V. |date=1960 |title="Nationality" in the State Ideology during the Reign of Nicholas I |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/126191 |journal=The Russian Review |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=38–46 |doi=10.2307/126191 |jstor=126191 |issn=0036-0341|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last1=Hosking |first1=Geoffrey A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H0plOWLcq3UC |title=Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 |last2=Hosking |first2=Emeritus Professor of Russian History Geoffrey |date=1997 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-78118-4 |pages=146–147 |language=en}} It required the Orthodox Church to take an essential role in politics and life, required the central rule of a single autocrat or absolute ruler, and proclaimed that the Russian people were uniquely capable of unifying a large empire due to special characteristics. Similar to the broader "divine right of kings", the emperor's power would be seen as resolving any contradictions in the world and creating an ideal "celestial" order.{{Cite book |last=Chubarov |first=Alexander |url=https://archive.org/details/russiasbitterpat0000chub/page/36/mode/2up |title=Russia's Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras |date=1 January 2001 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-0-8264-1350-5 |pages=36–37 |language=en}} Hosking argued that the trio of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" had key flaws in two of its main pillars, as the church was entirely dependent and submissive to the state, and the concept of nationality was underdeveloped because many officials were Baltic German and the revolutionary ideas of nation states were a "muffled echo" in a system that relied on serfdom. In practice, this left autocracy as the only viable pillar. Despite its underdeveloped and contradictory nature, the imperial "All-Russian" nationality was embraced by many imperial subjects (including Jews and Germans) and thus did provide some cultural and political support for the Empire.{{cite book |last1=Ilnytzkyj |first1=Oleh S. |title=Culture + the State: Nationalisms |publisher=CRC |year=1996 |isbn=9781551951492 |editor1-last=Zezulka-Mailloux |editor1-first=Gabrielle Eva Marie |page=127 |chapter=Culture and the Demise of the Russian Empire |quote=Since the second-half of the nineteenth century the state sponsored all-Russian national identity was embraced by many imperial subjects (Jews, Germans, Ukrainians) and served as the bedrock of the Empire. By the early twentieth century the idea of a triune Russian nation was deeply entrenched among ethnic Russians. |editor2-last=Gifford |editor2-first=James |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=57C0d-Nl830C&q=%22triune+russian+nation%22&pg=PA127}} This national concept first demonstrated its political importance near the end of the 18th century, as a means of legitimizing Russian imperial claims to the eastern territories of the partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Alexei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G4YREqrF1vIC&q=were+known+as+Little+Russians |title=A Testament of the All-Russian Idea |publisher=Central European University Press |year=2003 |isbn=9789639241367 |pages=234–235}}

In the 19th century, pan-Slavism became a new legitimation theory for the empire.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=58}} Though it originated in Western Slavic (Czech and Slovak) intellectual circles in the 1830s, and found support from anti-imperial Ukrainian movements like the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, pan-Slavism was later co-opted by conservative Russian nationalists as an ideological support for the Empire's power projection, particularly in the Balkans. "By the second half of the 19th century, Russian publicists adopted--and transformed--the ideology of Pan-Slavism. Convinced of their own political superiority and armed with self-confidence in their self-professed role as protector against the threat from German and Ottoman Turkish enemies, Russian publicists argued that all Slavs, for their own best interests, might as well merge with the 'Great Russians.'"{{cite book |last=Magocsi |first=Paul Robert |author-link=Paul Robert Magocsi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BNUtdVrw6lIC |title=A History of Ukraine: A Land and Its Peoples |publisher=University of Toronto Press |year=2010 |isbn=9781442640856 |location=Toronto |pages=392}}

The "Russian geography" poem by a notable 19th century Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev was considered by philologist {{ill|Roman Leibov|ru|Лейбов, Роман Григорьевич|et|Roman Leibov}} to express ideology of the worldwide Slavic empire:{{cite book |last1=Leibov |first1=Roman |editor1-last=Lyubov |editor1-first=Kiseleva |title="Идеологическая география" Российской империи: пространство, границы, обитатели |trans-title="Ideological geography" of the Russian empire |date=2012 |location=Tartu |publisher=Department of Russian Literature of the University of Tartu |page=192 |url=http://www.ruthenia.ru/territoria_et_populi/ideogeograf.html |chapter-url=http://www.ruthenia.ru/territoria_et_populi/texts/2.1.3.Leibov.pdf |language=ru |chapter=2.1.3. "Русская география" Ф. И. Тютчева |trans-chapter=2.1.3. "Russian geography" by F.I. Tyutchev}}

{{blockquote|Moscow and Peter's grad, the city of Constantine,

these are the capitals of Russian kingdom.

But where is their limit? And where are their frontiers

to the north, the east, the south and the setting sun?

The Fate will reveal this to future generations.

Seven inland seas and seven great rivers

from the Nile to the Neva, from the Elbe to China,

from the Volga to the Euphrates, from Ganges to the Danube.

That's the Russian Kingdom, and let it be forever,

just as the Spirit foretold and Daniel prophesied.}}

One of the leading theorists and political leaders of the Eurasianist movement, Nikolai Trubetzkoy, considered the predecessor of the Russian state to be the Mongol Empire founded by Genghis Khan, and not the principalities of Kievan Rus'. Genghis Khan was the first to unite the entire Eurasian continent, and as Trubetzkoy put it, "by its very nature, Eurasia is historically predestined to comprise a single state entity."{{cite journal |last1=Glebov |first1=Sergei |title=The Mongol–Bolshevik revolution: Eurasianist ideology in search for an ideal past |journal=Journal of Eurasian Studies |date=July 2011 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=103-114 |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879366510000400}}

{{Main|Territorial evolution of Russia}}

File:Russia 1533-1896.gif

From the 16th century onwards Russia conquered, on average, territory the size of the Netherlands every year for 150 years.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=28}}

{{Main|Russian conquest of Siberia}}

Russian expansionism has largely benefited from the proximity of the mostly uninhabited Siberia, which has been incrementally conquered by Russia since the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1530–1584).{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=26}} The Russian colonization of Siberia and conquest of its indigenous peoples has been compared to European colonization of the Americas and its natives, with similar negative impacts on the natives and the appropriation of their land. Other researchers, however, consider that settlement of Siberia differed from European colonization in not resulting in native depopulation, as well as providing gainful employment and integrating indigenous population into settlers' society.[https://books.google.com/books?id=WFjPAxhBEaEC&dq=russian+genocide+siberia+natives&pg=PA36 Batalden 1997], pp. 36-37. The North Pacific also became the target of similar expansion establishing the Russian Far East.{{Cite journal |last1=Sablin |first1=Ivan |last2=Sukhan |first2=Daniel |date=2018 |title=Regionalisms and Imperialisms in the Making of the Russian Far East, 1903–1926 |journal=Slavic Review |language=en |volume=77 |issue=2 |pages=333–357 |doi=10.1017/slr.2018.126 |s2cid=165426403 |issn=0037-6779|doi-access=free }}

In 1858, during the Second Opium War, Russia strengthened and eventually annexed the north bank of the Amur River and the coast down to the Korean border from China in the "Unequal Treaties" of Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860). During the Boxer Rebellion, the Russian Empire invaded Manchuria in 1900, and the Blagoveshchensk massacre occurred against Chinese residents on the Russian side of the border.{{Cite journal |last=Lin |first=Yuexin Rachel |date=2017 |title=White water, Red tide: Sino-Russian conflict on the Amur 1917–20 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1468-2281.12166 |journal=Historical Research |language=en |volume=90 |issue=247 |pages=76–100 |doi=10.1111/1468-2281.12166 |issn=1468-2281 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10871/31582|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last=Zatsepine |first=Victor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MzZLDgAAQBAJ |title=Beyond the Amur: Frontier Encounters between China and Russia, 1850–1930 |date=9 March 2017 |publisher=UBC Press |isbn=978-0-7748-3412-4 |language=en}} Furthermore, the empire at times controlled concession territories in China, notably the Chinese Eastern Railway and concessions in Tianjin and Russian Dalian.

{{Main|Russian conquest of Central Asia}}

The Russian conquest of Central Asia took place over several decades. In 1847–1864 they crossed the eastern Kazakh Steppe and built a line of forts along the northern border of Kyrgyzstan. In 1864–1868 they moved south from Kyrgyzstan, captured Tashkent and Samarkand and dominated the Khanates of Kokand and Bokhara. The next step was to turn this triangle into a rectangle by crossing the Caspian Sea. In 1873 the Russians conquered Khiva, and in 1881 they took western Turkmenistan. In 1884 they took the Merv oasis and eastern Turkmenistan. In 1885 further expansion south toward Afghanistan was blocked by the British. In 1893–1895 the Russians occupied the high Pamir Mountains in the southeast. According to historian Alexander Morrison, "Russia's expansion southwards across the Kazakh steppe into the riverine oases of Turkestan was one of the nineteenth century's most rapid and dramatic examples of imperial conquest."{{Cite journal |last=Morrison |first=Alexander |date=3 April 2014 |title=Introduction: Killing the Cotton Canard and getting rid of the Great Game: rewriting the Russian conquest of Central Asia, 1814–1895 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2014.915614 |journal=Central Asian Survey |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=131–142 |doi=10.1080/02634937.2014.915614 |s2cid=145275907 |issn=0263-4937}}

In the south, the Great Game was a political and diplomatic confrontation that existed for most of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century between the British Empire and the Russian Empire over Central and South Asia. Britain feared that Russia planned to invade India and that this was the goal of Russia's expansion in Central Asia, while Russia continued its conquest of Central Asia.{{Cite web |title=The Great Game, 1856-1907: Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia {{!}} Reviews in History |url=https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1611 |access-date=9 August 2021 |website=reviews.history.ac.uk |language=en}} Indeed, multiple 19th-century Russian invasion plans of India are attested, including the Duhamel and Khrulev plans of the Crimean War (1853–1856), among later plans that never materialized.{{Cite book |last=Korbel |first=Josef |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/927444240 |title=Danger in Kashmir |date=1966 |isbn=978-1-4008-7523-8 |location=Princeton, N.J. |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=277 |oclc=927444240}}

Historian A. I. Andreyev stated that, "in the days of the Great Game, Mongolia was an object of imperialist encroachment by Russia, as Tibet was for the British."{{Cite book |last=Andreev |first=A. I. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/51330174 |title=Soviet Russia and Tibet : the debacle of secret diplomacy, 1918-1930s |date=2003 |publisher=Brill |isbn=90-04-12952-9 |location=Leiden |pages=96 |oclc=51330174}} In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, the Russian Empire and British Empire officially ended their Great Game rivalry to focus on opposing the German Empire, dividing Iran into British and Russian portions.{{Cite news |last=Meyer |first=Karl E. |date=10 August 1987 |title=Opinion {{!}} The Editorial Notebook; Persia: The Great Game Goes On |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/10/opinion/the-editorial-notebook-persia-the-great-game-goes-on.html |access-date=24 October 2021 |issn=0362-4331}} In 1908, the Persian Constitutional Revolution sought to establish a democratic civil society in Iran, with an elected Majilis, a relatively free press and other reforms. The Russian Empire intervened in the Persian Constitutional Revolution to support the Shah and reactionary factions. The Cossacks bombarded the Majilis,{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1099541849 |title=Middle East conflicts from Ancient Egypt to the 21st century : an encyclopedia and document collection |date=2019 |editor1=Spencer Tucker |editor2=Priscilla Mary Roberts |isbn=978-1-4408-5353-1 |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=ABC-CLIO |oclc=1099541849}} Russia had earlier established the Persian Cossack Brigade in 1879, a force which was led by Russian officers and served as a vehicle for Russian influence in Iran.{{Cite book |last=Andreeva |first=Elena |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5PmSAgAAQBAJ |title=Russia and Iran in the great game : travelogues and Orientalism |publisher=Routledge |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-203-96220-6 |location=London |pages=63–76 |oclc=166422396}}

File:Provinces of all Russia 1898.jpg, 1898]]

During this epoch, Russia also followed a policy of westward expansion. Following the Swedish defeat in the Finnish War of 1808–1809 and the signing of the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on 17 September 1809, the eastern half of Sweden, the area that then became Finland, was incorporated into the Russian Empire as an autonomous grand duchy. In the late 19th century, the policy of Russification of Finland aimed to limit the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland and possibly ending its political autonomy and culturally assimilating it. Russification policies were also pursued in Ukraine and Belarus.

In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806–12) and the ensuing Treaty of Bucharest (1812), the eastern half of the Principality of Moldavia (which came to be known as Bessarabia), an Ottoman vassal state, and some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, came under the rule of the Russian Empire. At the Congress of Vienna (1815), Russia gained sovereignty over Congress Poland, which on paper was an autonomous Kingdom in personal union with Russia. However, the Russian Emperors generally disregarded any restrictions on their power. It was, therefore, little more than a puppet state.{{cite book |last=Nicolson |first=Harold George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qm5BNjqrGsUC&pg=PA171 |title=The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812–1822 |publisher=Grove Press |year=2001 |isbn=0-8021-3744-X |location=New York |page=171 |author-link=Harold Nicolson}}{{cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan Warwick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d_rlZKhgaekC&pg=PA7 |title=Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph |publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press |year=1997 |isbn=0-87113-665-1 |location=Boston |page=7 |author-link=Alan Warwick Palmer}} The autonomy was severely curtailed following uprisings in 1830–31 and 1863, as the country became governed by viceroys, and later divided into governorates (provinces).

Eastwards expansion was followed by the Russian colonization of North America across the Pacific Ocean. Russian promyshlenniki (trappers and hunters) quickly developed the maritime fur trade, which instigated several conflicts between the Aleuts and Russians in the 1760s. By the late 1780s, trade relations had opened with the Tlingits, and in 1799 the Russian-American Company (RAC) was formed in order to monopolize the fur trade, also serving as an imperialist vehicle for the Russification of Alaska Natives.

The Russian Empire also acquired the island of Sakhalin which was turned into one of history's largest prison colonies.{{Cite book |last=Doroshevich |first=Vlas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Me_HNU0hlIAC |title=Russia's Penal Colony in the Far East: A Translation of Vlas Doroshevich's "Sakhalin" |date=2011 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-0-85728-391-7 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Gentes |first=Andrew A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Ag0EAAAQBAJ |title=Russia's Sakhalin Penal Colony, 1849–1917: Imperialism and Exile |date=29 July 2021 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-000-37859-7 |language=en}} Initially, Russian maritime incursions into the waters surrounding Hokkaido began in the late eighteenth century, spurring Japan to map and explore its northern island surroundings. Sakhalin had been inhabited by indigenous peoples including Ainu, Uilta, and Nivkh, despite the island nominally paying tribute to the Qing dynasty. After Russia acquired Manchuria from the Qing in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, they also acquired from the Qing, a nominal claim to Sakhalin across the strait. With the earlier 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, a joint settler colony of both Russian and Japanese was temporarily created, despite conflicts. However with the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg the Russian Empire was granted Sakhalin in exchange for Japan gaining the Kuril Islands.{{Cite book |last1=Paichadze |first1=Svetlana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TnTABgAAQBAJ |title=Voices from the Shifting Russo-Japanese Border: Karafuto / Sakhalin |last2=Seaton |first2=Philip A. |date=20 February 2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-61889-8 |language=en |chapter=Japanese society on Karafuto}}

The furthest Russian colonies were in Fort Elizavety and Fort Alexander, Russian forts on the Hawaiian Islands, built in the early 19th century by the Russian-American Company as the result of an alliance with High Chief Kaumuali{{okina}}i, as well as in Sagallo, a short-lived Russian settlement established in 1889 on the Gulf of Tadjoura in French Somaliland (modern-day Djibouti). The Russians were forced to evacuate Sagallo after a French invasion. The southernmost settlement established in North America was at Fort Ross, California.

{{Main|Soviet Empire}}

File:Ves mir budet nash.jpg

Although the Soviet Union declared itself anti-imperialist, it exhibited tendencies common to historic empires.{{Cite journal |last=Beissinger |first=Mark R. |date=2006 |title=Soviet Empire as "Family Resemblance" |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S003767790016142X/type/journal_article |journal=Slavic Review |language=en |volume=65 |issue=2 |pages=294–303 |doi=10.2307/4148594 |jstor=4148594 |s2cid=156553569 |issn=0037-6779|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last=Dave |first=Bhavna |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203014899 |title=Kazakhstan - Ethnicity, Language and Power |date=13 September 2007 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780203014899 |isbn=978-1-134-32498-9}}{{cite journal |last=Caroe |first=O. |year=1953 |title=Soviet Colonialism in Central Asia |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=135–144 |doi=10.2307/20031013 |jstor=20031013}} This argument is traditionally held to have originated in Richard Pipes's book The Formation of the Soviet Union (1954).Bekus, Nelly (2010). Struggle Over Identity: The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness". [https://books.google.com/books?id=DiwPRpRYt2kC&pg=PA4 p. 4]. Several scholars, such as Seweryn Bialer, hold that the Soviet Union was a hybrid entity containing elements common to both multinational empires and nation states.{{cite book |last=Noren |first=Dag Wincens |url=https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3591&context=theses |title=The Soviet Union and eastern Europe: considerations in a political transformation of the Soviet bloc |publisher=University of Massachusetts Amherst |year=1990 |location=Amherst, Massachusetts |pages=27–38}} It has also been argued that the Soviet Union practiced colonialism similar to conventional imperial powers.{{cite book |last=Annus |first=Epp |title=Soviet Postcolonial Studies: A View from the Western Borderlands |date=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0367-2345-4-6 |pages=43–48 |author-link=Epp Annus}}{{cite web |last=Cucciolla |first=Riccardo |date=23 March 2019 |title=The Cotton Republic: Colonial Practices in Soviet Uzbekistan? |url=https://thecessblog.com/2019/03/the-cotton-republic-colonial-practices-in-soviet-uzbekistan-by-riccardo-mario-cucciolla-higher-school-of-economics-hse |access-date=22 April 2019 |publisher=Central Eurasian Studies Society |archive-date=15 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210115001141/https://thecessblog.com/2019/03/the-cotton-republic-colonial-practices-in-soviet-uzbekistan-by-riccardo-mario-cucciolla-higher-school-of-economics-hse/ |url-status=dead }} Maoists argued that the Soviet Union had itself become an imperialist power while maintaining a socialist façade, or social imperialism.{{Cite journal |last=Szymanski |first=Albert |date=1977 |title=Soviet Social Imperialism, Myth or Reality: An Empirical Examination of the Chinese Thesis |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035250 |journal=Berkeley Journal of Sociology |volume=22 |pages=131–166 |issn=0067-5830 |jstor=41035250}}{{Cite web |date=1977 |title=The Soviet Union: Is it the Nazi Germany of Today? |url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1a/ussr-nazi.htm |access-date=29 September 2021 |website=www.marxists.org}}

The Soviet ideology continued the messianism of Pan-Slavism which placed Russia as a special nation.{{Sfn|Herpen|2015|p=66}} While proletarian internationalism was originally embraced by the Bolshevik Party during its seizure of power in the Russian Revolution, after the formation of the Soviet Union, Marxist proponents of internationalism suggested that the country could be used as a "homeland of communism" from which revolution could be spread around the globe.{{cite book |last=Schwarzmantle |first=John |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198768203 |editor-last=Breuilly |editor-first=John |location=Oxford |pages=643–651}}{{cite book |last1=Johnson |first1=Elliott |title=Historical Dictionary of Marxism |last2=Walker |first2=David |last3=Gray |first3=Daniel |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4422-3798-8 |edition=2nd |series=Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements |location=Lanham, Maryland |page=294}} Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged this turn towards national communism in 1924, away from the classical Marxism position of global socialism. According to Alexander Wendt, this "evolved into an ideology of control rather than revolution under the rubric of socialist internationalism" within the Soviet Union.{{Cite journal |last1=Wendt |first1=Alexander |last2=Friedheim |first2=Daniel |date=1995 |title=Hierarchy under anarchy: informal empire and the East German state |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/abs/hierarchy-under-anarchy-informal-empire-and-the-east-german-state/5B5275FD4CA70ECEA68077AC158023C2 |journal=International Organization |language=en |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=689–721 |doi=10.1017/S0020818300028484 |s2cid=145236865 |issn=1531-5088|url-access=subscription }}{{Rp|page=704}}

Under Leonid Brezhnev, the policy of "Developed Socialism" declared the Soviet Union to be the most complete socialist country—other countries were "socialist", but the USSR was "developed socialist"—explaining its dominant role and hegemony over the other socialist countries.{{Citation |last=Sandle |first=Mark |title=Brezhnev and Developed Socialism: The Ideology of Zastoi? |date=2002 |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230501089_8 |work=Brezhnev Reconsidered |pages=165–187 |editor-last=Bacon |editor-first=Edwin |series=Studies in Russian and East European History and Society |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230501089_8 |isbn=978-0-230-50108-9 |access-date=30 May 2021 |editor2-last=Sandle |editor2-first=Mark |url-access=subscription }} Brezhnev also formulated and implemented the interventionist Brezhnev doctrine, permitting the invasion of other socialist countries, which was characterised as imperial.{{Cite thesis |last=Roberts |first=Jason A. |date=2015 |title=The Anti-Imperialist Empire: Soviet Nationality Policies under Brezhnev |url=https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/6514 |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=West Virginia University |doi=10.33915/etd.6514 |doi-access=free}} Alongside this Brezhnev also implemented a policy of cultural Russification as part of Developed Socialism, which sought to assert more central control. This was a dimension of Soviet cultural imperialism, which involved the Sovietization of culture and education at the expense of local traditions.Tsvetkova, Natalia (2013). Failure of American and Soviet Cultural Imperialism in German Universities, 1945-1990. Boston, Leiden: Brill.

File:Soviet Union Administrative Divisions 1989.jpg, 1989]]

The Soviets pursued internal colonialism in Central Asia.{{Cite journal |last=Loring |first=Benjamin |date=2014 |title="Colonizers with Party Cards": Soviet Internal Colonialism in Central Asia, 1917–39 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/28/article/538640 |journal=Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History |volume=15 |issue=1 |pages=77–102 |doi=10.1353/kri.2014.0012 |s2cid=159664992 |issn=1538-5000|url-access=subscription }} From the 1930s through the 1950s, Joseph Stalin ordered population transfers in the Soviet Union, deporting people (often entire nationalities) to underpopulated remote areas. Transfers from the Caucasus to Central Asia included the Deportation of the Balkars, Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, Deportation of the Crimean Tatars, the Deportation of the Karachays, and the Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks. Many European Soviet citizens and much of Russia's industry were relocated to Kazakhstan during World War II, when Nazi armies threatened to capture all the European industrial centers of the Soviet Union. These migrants founded mining towns which quickly grew to become major industrial centers such as Karaganda (1934), Zhezkazgan (1938), Temirtau (1945) and Ekibastuz (1948). In 1955, the town of Baikonur was built to support the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Many more Russians arrived in the years 1953–1965, during the so-called Virgin Lands Campaign of Soviet general secretary Nikita Khrushchev. Still more settlers came in the late 1960s and 70s, when the government paid bonuses to workers participating in a program to relocate Soviet industry close to the extensive coal, gas, and oil deposits of Central Asia. By 1979 ethnic Russians in Kazakhstan numbered about 5,500,000, almost 40% of the total population.

Despite early support for self-determination, the Bolsheviks reconquered most of the Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War.{{rp|p=40}} The early Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic annexed by force the following states:

• Crimea, 1918
• Turkestan, 1918
• Yakutia, 1918
• Belarus, 1919
• Alash Autonomy, 1920
• Armenia, 1920
• Azerbaijan, 1920
• Emirate of Bukhara, 1920
• Khanate of Khiva, 1920
• North Caucasian Emirate, 1920
• North Ingria, 1920
• Buryatia, 1921
• Georgia, 1921
• Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, 1921
• Ukrainian People's Republic, 1921
• Altai, 1922
• Green Ukraine, 1922
• Karelia, 1923

From the 1919 Karakhan Manifesto to 1927, diplomats of the Soviet Union would promise to revoke concessions in China, but the Soviets kept tsarist concessions such as the Chinese Eastern Railway as part of secret negotiations 1924-1925.{{Cite book |last=Elleman |first=Bruce A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sgRWWWNYZ1IC |title=Diplomacy and Deception: The Secret History of Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1917-1927 |date=1997 |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |isbn=978-0-7656-0142-1 |pages=134, 165, 168, 174 |language=en}} This played a role in leading to the 1929 Sino-Soviet conflict, which the Soviets won and reaffirmed their control over the railway,{{Cite book |last=Walker |first=Michael M. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/966274204 |title=The 1929 Sino-Soviet war : the war nobody knew |date=2017 |isbn=978-0-7006-2375-4 |location=Lawrence, Kansas |publisher=University Press of Kansas |oclc=966274204}} the railway was returned in 1952.{{Cite journal |last=Elleman |first=Bruce A. |date=1994 |title=The Soviet Union's Secret Diplomacy Concerning the Chinese Eastern Railway, 1924–1925 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2059842 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=459–486 |doi=10.2307/2059842 |jstor=2059842 |s2cid=162586404 |issn=0021-9118|url-access=subscription }}

In 1939, the USSR entered into the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi GermanyEncyclopædia Britannica, German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact, 2008 that contained a secret protocol that divided Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html Text of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141114231303/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1939pact.html|date=14 November 2014}}, executed 23 August 1939 Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.Christie, Kenneth, Historical Injustice and Democratic Transition in Eastern Asia and Northern Europe: Ghosts at the Table of Democracy, RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, {{ISBN|0-7007-1599-1}}

The Soviet Union had invaded the portions of eastern Poland assigned to it by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact two weeks after the German invasion of western Poland, followed by co-ordination with German forces in Poland.{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|p=43}}{{Citation |last=Sanford |first=George |title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre Of 1940: Truth, Justice And Memory |year=2005 |location=London, New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-33873-8 |author-link=George Sanford (scholar)}} During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, and a German-Soviet meeting addressed the future structure of the "Polish region".{{Harvnb|Nekrich|Ulam|Freeze|1997|p=131}} Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization{{Citation |title=Sowietyzacja Kresów Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej po 17 wrzesnia 1939 |page=441 |year=1998 |editor=Adam Sudol |location=Bydgoszcz |publisher=Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna |language=pl |isbn=978-83-7096-281-4}}{{Citation |title=Demography and National Security |pages=308–315 |year=2001 |editor=Myron Weiner, Sharon Stanton Russell |chapter=Stalinist Forced Relocation Policies |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J9nuv7MGQ5MC&q=Sovietization&pg=PA309 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-57181-339-8}} of the newly Soviet-annexed areas.The Soviets organized staged elections,{{in lang|pl}} Bartlomiej Kozlowski [http://kalendarium.polska.pl/wydarzenia/article.htm?id=132394 Wybory" do Zgromadzen Ludowych Zachodniej Ukrainy i Zachodniej Bialorusi] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090923190801/http://kalendarium.polska.pl/wydarzenia/article.htm?id=132394|date=23 September 2009}}, NASK, 2005, Polska.pl, the result of which was to become a legitimization of Soviet annexation of eastern Poland. Jan Tomasz Gross, [https://books.google.com/books?id=XKtOr4EXOWwC&pg=PA71 Revolution from Abroad], Princeton University Press, 2003, page 396 {{ISBN|0-691-09603-1}}Soviet authorities attempted to erase Polish history and culture, Trela-Mazur, Elzbieta, Sowietyzacja oswiaty w Malopolsce Wschodniej pod radziecka okupacja 1939–1941 (Sovietization of Education in Eastern Lesser Poland During the Soviet Occupation 1939–1941), ed. Wlodzimierz Bonusiak, et al. (eds.), Wyzsza Szkola Pedagogiczna im. Jana Kochanowskiego, 1997, {{ISBN|978-83-7133-100-8}}Soviet authorities withdrew the Polish currency without exchanging rubles,{{in lang|pl}}, Karolina Lanckoronska Wspomnienia wojenne; 22 IX 1939 – 5 IV 1945, 2001, ed, page 364, [http://www.lwow.com.pl/karolina.html Chapter I – Lwów] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327101720/http://www.lwow.com.pl/karolina.html|date=27 March 2009}}, ZNAK, {{ISBN|83-240-0077-1}}

In 1939, the Soviet Union unsuccessfully attempted an invasion of Finland,{{Citation |last=Kennedy-Pip |first=Caroline |title=Stalin's Cold War |year=1995 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-4201-0}} subsequent to which the parties entered into an interim peace treaty granting the Soviet Union the eastern region of Karelia (10% of Finnish territory), and the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was established by merging the ceded territories with the KASSR. After a June 1940 Soviet Ultimatum demanding Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region from Romania,{{Harvnb|Roberts|2006|p=55}}{{Harvnb|Shirer|1990|p=794}} the Soviets entered these areas, Romania caved to Soviet demands and the Soviets occupied the territories.The occupation accompanied religious persecution during the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and Soviet deportations from Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.

In September and October 1939 the Soviet government compelled the much smaller Baltic states to conclude mutual assistance pacts which gave the Soviets the right to establish military bases there. Following invasion by the Red Army in the summer of 1940, Soviet authorities compelled the Baltic governments to resign. Under Soviet supervision, new puppet communist governments and fellow travelers arranged rigged elections with falsified results.[https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a093831.pdf Attitudes of Major Soviet Nationalities. Volume II. The Baltics], Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973/ (Archived copy). Retrieved 22 January 2020. Shortly thereafter, the newly elected "people's assemblies" passed resolutions requesting admission into the Soviet Union. After the invasion in 1940 the repressions followed with the mass deportations carried out by the Soviets.

By the end of World War II the Soviet Union had also annexed:{{cn|date=August 2022}}

• Carpathian Ruthenia, formerly in Czechoslovakia and occupied in 1944
• Tuva (independent 1921–1944; previously governed by Mongolia and by the Manchu Empire (Tannu Uriankhai))
• East Prussia (now Kaliningrad Oblast) from Germany, in 1945
• The Klaipėda Region, annexed to Lithuania in 1945
• The Kuril Islands and southern Sakhalin from Japan, occupied in 1945
• Snake Island in the Black Sea and several Danubian islands from Romania, occupied in 1944 and annexed in 1948{{cite journal|url=http://eubsr.ucdc.ro/2013/eubsr2012-vol2.pdf#page=43|title=Romanian-Soviet disputes regarding the maritime boundary delimitation during the postwar period|first=Dumitru|last=Laurențiu Cristian|journal=Black Sea: History, Diplomacy, Policies and Strategies|volume=1|year=2012|pages=41–43|isbn=9788890730207}}

At the end of World War II, most eastern and central European countries were occupied by the Soviet Union,{{Harvnb|Wettig|2008|p=69}} known as “European colonies”, while remaining independent though their politics, military, foreign and domestic policies were dominated by the Soviet Union.[https://books.google.com/books?id=E7pQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA132 Vladimir Tismaneanu, Marius Stan, Cambridge University Press, 17 May, 2018, Romania Confronts Its Communist Past: Democracy, Memory, and Moral Justice, p. 132]{{Better source needed|date=August 2022|reason=A source related to Russian imperialism needed. One referenced here is about Romania and specifically says that Romania was independent and not a colony.}} Soviet satellite states in Europe included:{{Harvnb|Rao|2006|p=280}}{{Harvnb|Langley|2006|p=30}}{{Harvnb|Merkl|2004|p=53}}{{Harvnb|Rajagopal|2003|p=75}}

• {{Flagicon|People's Republic of Albania}} People's Republic of Albania (1946–1961)
• {{Flagicon|Republic of Finland}} Republic of Finland (1947-1991) - Finlandization
• {{Flagicon|Czechoslovak Socialist Republic}} Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1989)
• {{Flagicon|Polish People's Republic}} Polish People's Republic (1947–1989)
• {{Flagicon|People's Republic of Bulgaria}} People's Republic of Bulgaria (1946–1990)
• {{Flagicon|Romanian People's Republic}} Romanian People's Republic (1947–1965; eventually achieved de-satellization)
• {{Flagicon|DDR}} German Democratic Republic (1949–1990)
• {{Flagicon|Hungarian People's Republic|1949}} Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989)
• {{flagicon|Yugoslavia|1945}} Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1945–1948)

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan can also be considered a Soviet satellite; from 1978 until 1991, the central government in Kabul was aligned with the Eastern Bloc, and was directly supported by Soviet military between 1979 and 1989. The Mongolian People's Republic was also a Soviet satellite from 1924 to 1991.{{cite book |last1=Sik |first1=Ko Swan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H1ecjepq80QC&pg=PA39 |title=Nationality and International Law in Asian Perspective |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-7923-0876-8 |page=39|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff Publishers }} Other Asian Soviet satellite states included the Chinese Soviet Republic in Jiangxi province, the Tuvan People's Republic, and the East Turkestan Republic.

{{See also|Putinism|Russia under Vladimir Putin|Ruscism}}

File:Флагштоки у парка 300-летия Санкт-Петербурга и Лахта-центр. Июнь 2023.jpg (middle), flying alongside the current flag of Russia (right) and the flag of the Soviet Union (left) in front of Gazprom's Lakhta Centre outside St Petersburg, 2023]]

Analysts have described Russia's state ideology under Vladimir Putin as nationalist and imperialist.{{multiref2

|{{cite web |last1=Melvin |first1=Neil |author1-link=Neil Melvin |title=Nationalist and Imperial Thinking Define Putin's Vision for Russia |url=https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/nationalist-and-imperial-thinking-define-putins-vision-russia |publisher=Royal United Services Institute |date=2 March 2022}}

|{{cite journal |last1=Götz |first1=Elias |last2=Merlen |first2=Camille-Renaud |title=Russia and the question of world order |journal=European Politics and Society |date=2019 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=133–153 |doi=10.1080/23745118.2018.1545181 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23745118.2018.1545181}}

|{{cite journal |last1=Mälksoo |first1=Maria |title=The Postcolonial Moment in Russia's War Against Ukraine |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=2023 |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=471–481 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2022.2074947 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2022.2074947|url-access=subscription }}

|{{cite book |last1=McNabb |first1=David |title=Vladimir Putin and Russia's Imperial Revival |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |page=58}}}}{{cite web |last1=Kolesnikov |first1=Andrei |author1-link=Andrey Kolesnikov (journalist) |title=Blood and Iron: How Nationalist Imperialism Became Russia's State Ideology |url=https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/11/blood-and-iron-how-nationalist-imperialism-became-russias-state-ideology?lang=en |publisher=Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center |date=December 2023}}{{cite book |last1=Van Herpen |first1=Marcel |title=Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism |date=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=61}}{{cite book |last1=Grigas |first1=Agnia |title=Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=2–3, 9}}{{cite journal |last1=Mankoff |first1=Jeffrey |title=The War in Ukraine and Eurasia's New Imperial Moment |journal=The Washington Quarterly |date=2022 |volume=45 |issue=2 |pages=127–128 |doi=10.1080/0163660X.2022.2090761 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2022.2090761|url-access=subscription }}{{cite magazine |author1=Orlando Figes |author1-link=Orlando Figes |title=Putin Sees Himself as Part of the History of Russia's Tsars—Including Their Imperialism |url=https://time.com/6218211/vladimir-putin-russian-tsars-imperialism/ |magazine=Time |date=30 September 2022}} Since his third term as president, some analysts argue that Putin and his inner circle are working to re-establish a Russian empire.{{cite journal |last1=Shinar |first1=Chaim |title=Vladimir Putin's Aspiration to Restore the Lost Russian Empire |journal=European Review |date=October 2017 |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=642–654 |doi=10.1017/S1062798717000278 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-review/article/abs/vladimir-putins-aspiration-to-restore-the-lost-russian-empire/C0099C205BCDBA970CB699AFD534CBE5|url-access=subscription }}{{cite web |author1=Michael Hirsh |author1-link=Michael Hirsh (journalist) |title=Putin's Thousand-Year War |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/12/putins-thousand-year-war/ |website=Foreign Policy |date=12 March 2022}} Andrey Kolesnikov describes Putin's regime as melding nationalist imperialism with conservative Orthodoxy and aspects of Stalinism. Putin has portrayed the Soviet Union as carrying out Russia's "imperial destiny" under another name.{{cite journal |last1=Kolesnikov |first1=Andrei |title=The End of the Russian Idea |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/vladimir-putin-end-russian-idea |journal=Foreign Affairs |date=August 2023|volume=102 |issue=5 }}

File:Russian occupied territories in map.svg in Europe in light red]]

The Russian Federation is the primary recognized successor state to the Soviet Union and it has been accused of trying to bring post-Soviet states back under its control.{{Sfn|Van Herpen|2013|p=93}} Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has occupied parts of neighboring states. These occupied territories are Transnistria (part of Moldova); Abkhazia and South Ossetia (part of Georgia); and large parts of Ukraine, which it has illegally annexed. The four southernmost Kuril Islands are considered by Japan and several other countries to be occupied by Russia as well. Russia has also established effective political domination over Belarus, through the Union State. Marcel Van Herpen has described the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and Eurasian Customs Union as further empire-building projects.{{cite book |last1=Van Herpen |first1=Marcel |title=Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism |date=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=3}}

In the political language of Russia, the post-Soviet republics are referred to as the "near abroad". Increasing usage of the term is linked to assertions of Russia's right to maintain significant influence in the region.{{cite web |author=William Safire |author-link=William Safire |date=22 May 1994 |title=ON LANGUAGE; The Near Abroad |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EED81E39F931A15756C0A962958260 |access-date=18 April 2008 |work=The New York Times}}{{cite news |author=Robert Kagan |author-link=Robert Kagan |date=6 February 2008 |title=New Europe, Old Russia |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020502879.html |access-date=18 April 2008}}{{cite web |author=Steven Erlanger |author-link=Steven Erlanger |date=25 February 2001 |title=The World; Learning to Fear Putin's Gaze |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05E5D91039F936A15751C0A9679C8B63 |access-date=18 April 2008 |work=The New York Times}} Putin has declared the region to be part of Russia's "sphere of influence", and strategically vital to Russian interests. The concept has been compared to the Monroe Doctrine.

A 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 44% of Russians agreed that "it is natural for Russia to have an empire",{{cite web |title=Many Russians agree that it is natural for them to have an empire |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/03/04/many-russians-agree-that-it-is-natural-for-them-to-have-an-empire/ |publisher=Pew Research Center |date=4 March 2014}} while a 2015 survey found that "61 percent of Russians believe parts of neighboring countries really belong to Russia".{{cite news |author=Casey Michael |date=19 June 2015 |title=Pew Survey: Irredentism Alive and Well in Russia |publisher=The Diplomat |url=https://thediplomat.com/2015/06/pew-survey-irredentism-alive-and-well-in-russia/}}

During the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, Russia took control of and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine, following a referendum held under occupation. Analyst Vladimir Socor described Putin's speech marking the annexation as a "manifesto of Greater-Russia irredentism".{{cite news |author=Vladimir Socor |title=Putin's Crimea Speech: A Manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism |volume=11 |publisher=Eurasia Daily Monitor |issue=56 |date=March 2014 |url=https://jamestown.org/program/putins-crimea-speech-a-manifesto-of-greater-russia-irredentism/}} Putin harked back to the "Russian soldiers whose bravery brought Crimea into the Russian Empire". He said that the dissolution of the Soviet Union had "robbed" Russia of territories and made Russians "the biggest ethnic group in the world to be divided by borders", calling this an "outrageous historical injustice".{{cite news |title=Crimea crisis: Russian President Putin's speech annotated |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26652058 |work=BBC News |date=19 March 2014}} In Socor's view, Putin's speech thus "implies that reclaiming Crimea is only a first step in a grander design". Peter Dickinson of the Atlantic Council considers the annexation to mark the start of a "campaign of imperial conquest" by Putin.{{cite web |last1=Dickinson |first1=Peter |title=Putin admits Ukraine invasion is an imperial war to "return" Russian land |url=https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putin-admits-ukraine-invasion-is-an-imperial-war-to-return-russian-land/ |publisher=Atlantic Council |date=10 June 2022}}

Russia has been accused of neo-colonialism in Crimea by enforced Russification, discrimination, and by settling Russian citizens on the peninsula and forcing out Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars, which has been described as colonization.{{cite journal |last1=Yermakova |first1=Olena |title=The silent Russian colonisation of Crimea |journal=New Eastern Europe |date=August 2021 |url=https://neweasterneurope.eu/2021/06/23/the-silent-russian-colonisation-of-crimea/}}

File:A rally in support of Novorossiya in Moscow on June 11, 2014 (19).jpg" (New Russia), a former imperial territory in Ukraine. Shown are the black-yellow-white flag of the Russian Empire and flags of Russian separatist forces in Ukraine.]]

During and following the Crimea annexation, pro-Russian unrest erupted in parts of southeastern Ukraine. In April 2014, armed Russian-backed separatists seized towns in the eastern Donbas region, sparking the Donbas War with Ukraine. That month, Putin began referring to "Novorossiya" (New Russia), a former Russian imperial territory that covered much of southern Ukraine. Michael Kimmage writes that this "implied an imperial program on Russia's part".{{cite book |last1=Kimmage |first1=Michael |title=Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability |date=2024 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=129}} The Russian separatists declared their captured territories to be the Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics". Russian imperial nationalism and Orthodox fundamentalism shaped the official ideology of these breakaway states,{{cite web |last1=Likhachev |first1=Vyacheslav |date=July 2016 |title=The Far Right in the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine |url=https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rnv95_uk_likhachev_far-right_radicals_final.pdf |access-date=1 March 2022 |publisher=Russie.NEI.Visions in English |pages=18–28}} and they announced plans for a new Novorossiya, to incorporate all of eastern and southern Ukraine.{{cite journal |last1=O'Loughlin |first1=John |title=The rise and fall of "Novorossiya": examining support for a separatist geopolitical imaginary in southeast Ukraine |journal=Post-Soviet Affairs |date=2017 |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=124–144 |doi=10.1080/1060586X.2016.1146452 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1060586X.2016.1146452|url-access=subscription }}{{cite news |title=Ukraine: Are 2014 pro-Russia rebels fighting 1920s war? |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28532392 |work=BBC News |date=28 July 2014}} The far-right Russian Imperial Movement trained and recruited thousands of volunteers to join the separatists through its 'Russian Imperial Legion'.{{cite book |last1=Kuzio |first1=Taras |title=Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption, and the New Russian Imperialism |date=2015 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |pages=110–111|quote=the Russian Orthodox Army, one of a number of separatist units fighting for the "Orthodox faith," revival of the Tsarist Empire, and the Russkii Mir. Igor Girkin (Strelkov [Shooter]), who led the Russian capture of Slovyansk in April 2014, was an example of the Russian nationalists who have sympathies to pro-Tsarist and extremist Orthodox groups in Russia. ... the Russian Imperial Movement ... has recruited thousands of volunteers to fight with the separatists. ... such as the Russian Party of National Unity who use a modified swastika as their party symbol and Dugin's Eurasianist movement. The paramilitaries of both of these ... are fighting alongside separatists.}}

In his 2021 essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", Putin referred to Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians as "one people" making up a triune Russian nation. He maintained that large parts of Ukraine are historical Russian lands and claimed there is "no historical basis" for the "idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians".Düben, B A. "[https://doi.org/10.31389/lseppr.86 Revising History and ‘Gathering the Russian Lands’: Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Nationhood"]. LSE Public Policy Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 2023 Björn Alexander Düben, professor of international affairs, writes that Putin is "embracing a neo-imperialist account that exalts Russia's centuries-long repressive rule over Ukraine, while simultaneously presenting Russia as a victim".

File:Putin (2022-03-08).jpg has compared himself to Peter the Great in an effort to "regain the former Russian lands".{{cite news |title=Putin compares himself to Peter the Great over drive to 'take back Russian land' |url=https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/06/10/putin-compares-himself-to-peter-the-great-over-drive-to-take-back-russian-land |work=Euronews |date=10 June 2022}}]]

Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.{{cite web |date=24 February 2022 |title=Ukraine conflict: Russian forces attack after Putin TV declaration |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60503037 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220224064553/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60503037 |archive-date=24 February 2022 |access-date=24 February 2022 |website=BBC News}} In announcing the invasion, Putin espoused an imperialist ideology; he repeatedly denied Ukraine's right to exist, calling the country "an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space", and claiming that it was created by Russia.{{cite web |last1=Durand |first1=Olivia |title=Putin's invasion of Ukraine attacks its distinct history and reveals his imperial instincts |url=https://theconversation.com/putins-invasion-of-ukraine-attacks-its-distinct-history-and-reveals-his-imperial-instincts-177669 |website=The Conversation |date=24 February 2022}} Jeffrey Mankoff of the Institute for National Strategic Studies called the invasion "the 21st century's first imperial war" and said it "reflects the desire of many in the Russian elite to reestablish an imperial Russia". It has been referred to as an irredentist war, going against the norm since World War II that sees territorial conquest as unacceptable.{{cite news |author1=Paul Hensel |author2=Sara Mitchell |author3=Andrew Owsiak |date=4 March 2022 |title=Russian irredentist claims are a threat to global peace |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/04/putin-sovereignty-ukraine-irredentism/ |access-date=31 March 2022}} Four months into the invasion, Putin compared himself to Russian emperor Peter the Great. He said that Tsar Peter had returned "Russian land" to the empire, and that "it is now also our responsibility to return (Russian) land". Peter Dickinson of the Atlantic Council sees these comments as proof that Putin "is waging an old-fashioned imperial war of conquest".

In Imperialism, supremacy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (2023), Kseniya Oksamytna wrote that "Imperialism is not just a land grab or subversion of another country's independence: it is an exercise of supremacy". She noted that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by discourses of Russian "supremacy" and Ukrainian "inferiority". Russian media portrayed Ukraine as weak, divided, illegitimate, and needing to be "saved" by Russia. Oksamytna says that this likely fuelled war crimes against Ukrainians and that "the behavior of Russian forces bore all hallmarks of imperial violence, including sexual abuse, the looting of cultural artifacts, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, and forced recruitment of people on occupied territories into the imperial army".{{cite journal |last1=Oksamytna |first1=Kseniya |title=Imperialism, supremacy, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine |journal=Contemporary Security Policy |date=October 2023 |volume=44 |issue=4 |pages=497–512 |doi=10.1080/13523260.2023.2259661 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13523260.2023.2259661#abstract|doi-access=free }} Likewise, Orlando Figes defines the invasion as "imperial expansionism" and writes that the Russians' sense of superiority may help to explain its brutality: "The Russian killings of civilians, their rapes of women, and other acts of terror are driven by a post-imperial urge to take revenge and punish them, to make them pay for their independence from Russia, for their determination to be part of Europe, to be Ukrainians, and not subjects of the 'Russian world'".

File:Административная карта России.png from 2023 with internationally unrecognized borders after the Russian annexation of southeastern Ukraine]]

In September 2022, Russian occupation authorities held annexation referendums in occupied provinces of Ukraine, despite the ongoing war and depopulation. Russian authorities said the results were overwhelmingly in favor of joining Russia. Putin then signed what he called "accession treaties" proclaiming the Russian annexation of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia oblasts on 30 September. The referendums, as well as the annexation, were condemned as illegitimate by the international community.{{cite news|title=Russia holds annexation votes; Ukraine says residents coerced|url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-marches-farther-into-liberated-lands-separatist-calls-urgent-referendum-2022-09-19/|newspaper=Reuters|date=24 September 2022|access-date=18 September 2023|last1=Polityuk|first1=Pavel}}{{cite news|title=Putin annexes four regions of Ukraine in major escalation of Russia's war|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/30/putin-russia-war-annexes-ukraine-regions|newspaper=The Guardian|date=30 September 2022|access-date=18 September 2023|last1=Sauer|first1=Pjotr|last2=Harding|first2=Luke}}

In 2023, Putin said that Russian soldiers killed in the invasion of Ukraine "gave their lives to Novorossiya [New Russia] and for the unity of the Russian world".{{cite news |title='Internal betrayal': Transcript of Vladimir Putin's address |url=https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/24/internal-betrayal-transcript-of-vladimir-putins-address |work=Al Jazeera |date=24 June 2023}} In 2025, he claimed Russians and Ukrainians were "one people" and that in a sense, "the whole of Ukraine is ours".{{Cite web |last=Dickinson |first=Peter |date=2025-06-23 |title=‘All of Ukraine is ours’: Putin’s Russian imperialism is now on full display |url=https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/all-of-ukraine-is-ours-putins-russian-imperialism-is-now-on-full-display/ |access-date=2025-06-28 |website=Atlantic Council |language=en-US}}{{Cite news |last=Faulconbridge |first=Guy |last2=Soldatkin |first2=Vladimir |last3=Faulconbridge |first3=Guy |date=2025-06-20 |title=Putin says 'the whole of Ukraine is ours' - in theory |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-the-whole-ukraine-is-ours-theory-may-take-city-sumy-2025-06-20/ |access-date=2025-06-28 |work=Reuters |language=en}}

Since the 2000s the Russian government has promoted the idea of the "Russian World" ({{langx|ru|Русский мир|translit=Russkiy Mir}}); generally defined as the community of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers who identify with Eastern Orthodoxy and who purportedly hold similar values.Grigas, pp.30-31 Putin established the Kremlin-funded Russkiy Mir Foundation in 2007, to foster the "Russian World" concept abroad. Jeffrey Mankoff says that the "Russian World" embodies "the idea of a Russian imperial nation transcending the Russian Federation's borders" and challenges "neighboring states' efforts to construct their own civic nations and disentangle their histories from Russia".{{cite book |last1=Mankoff |first1=Jeffrey |title=Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security |date=2022 |publisher=Yale University Press |page=25}} It has been endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church under the leadership of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who said "the civilization of Russia belongs to something broader than the Russian Federation. This civilization we call the Russian world". Patriarch Kirill's 2009 tour of Ukraine was described by Oleh Medvedev, adviser to Ukraine's prime minister, as "a visit of an imperialist who preached the neo-imperialist Russian World doctrine".{{cite book |last1=Van Herpen |first1=Marcel |title=Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism |date=2015 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=241}}

Linked to the "Russian World" idea is the concept of "Russian compatriots"; a term by which the Kremlin refers to the Russian diaspora and Russian-speakers in other countries.Mankoff, p.40 In her book Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire (2016), Agnia Grigas highlights how "Russian compatriots" have become an "instrument of Russian neo-imperial aims". The Kremlin has sought influence over them by offering them Russian citizenship and passports (passportization), and in some cases eventually calling for their military protection. Grigas writes that the Kremlin uses the existence of these "compatriots" to "gain influence over and challenge the sovereignty of foreign states and at times even take over territories". This has been demonstrated in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Then-President Dmitry Medvedev justified the 2008 invasion of Georgia as defending "compatriots" in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.Mankoff, p.40 The issue of "Russian compatriots" has also raised tensions in Moldova's Gagauzia, Estonia's Ida-Viru county, Latvia's Latgale region, northern Kazakhstan, and elsewhere. Many countries resist the use of this term, as do many of the people to whom the Kremlin applies it.

Putin is said to be influenced by the imperialist ideology of Eurasianism.{{cite news |author=Burton, Tara Isabella |title=The far-right mystical writer who helped shape Putin's view of Russia |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/12/dugin-russia-ukraine-putin/ |date=12 May 2022 |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=27 June 2024}} The contemporary Eurasianist ideology was shaped and promoted by political theorist Aleksandr Dugin, who espoused it in his 1997 book Foundations of Geopolitics. Political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov defines Dugin's Eurasianism as "a fascist ideology centred on the idea of revolutionising the Russian society and building a totalitarian, Russia-dominated Eurasian Empire that would challenge and eventually defeat its eternal adversary represented by the United States and its Atlanticist allies, thus bringing about a new ‘golden age’ of global political and cultural illiberalism".Shekhovtsov, Anton (2018) Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir, Abingdon, Routledge, p. 43. Russia's military and political aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has been influenced and supported by neo-Eurasianists.{{Cite web |last1=Alex |last2=Ross |first2=er Reid |last3=Burley |first3=Shane |date=5 March 2022 |title=Into the Irrational Core of Pure Violence: On the Convergence of neo-Eurasianism and the Kremlin's War in Ukraine |url=http://newfascismsyllabus.com/contributions/into-the-irrational-core-of-pure-violence-on-the-convergence-of-neo-eurasianism-and-the-kremlins-war-in-ukraine/ |access-date=12 March 2022 |website=The New Fascism Syllabus |language=en}} In 2023, Russia adopted a Eurasianist, anti-Western foreign policy in a document approved by Putin. This defines Russia as a "unique country-civilization and a vast Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power" that seeks to create a "Greater Eurasian Partnership".{{Cite news |date=31 March 2023 |title=Russia adopts new anti-West foreign policy strategy |work=Deutsche Welle |url=https://www.dw.com/en/russia-adopts-new-anti-west-foreign-policy-strategy/a-65198660 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415103330/https://www.dw.com/en/russia-adopts-new-anti-west-foreign-policy-strategy/a-65198660 |archive-date=15 April 2023}}{{Cite web |last=Gould-Davies |first=Nigel |date=6 April 2023 |title=Russia's new foreign-policy concept: the impact of war |url=https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2023/04/russia-new-foreign-policy-concept-the-impact-of-war/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230502170222/https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2023/04/russia-new-foreign-policy-concept-the-impact-of-war/ |archive-date=2 May 2023 |website=IISS}}{{Cite web |date=1 March 2023 |title=The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation |url=https://russiaeu.ru/en/news/concept-foreign-policy-russian-federation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230410161817/https://russiaeu.ru/en/news/concept-foreign-policy-russian-federation |archive-date=10 April 2023 |website=Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union}}

{{further|Wagner Group activities in Africa}}

File:Russian mercenaries in CAR.jpg

The Wagner Group, a Russian state-funded{{cite web|title=Wagner mutiny: Group fully funded by Russia, says Putin|date=27 June 2023|access-date=27 June 2023|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66029382|website=BBC News|archive-date=4 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230904092015/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66029382|url-status=live}} private military company (PMC), has provided military support, security and protection for several autocratic regimes in Africa since 2017. In return, Russian and Wagner-linked companies have been given privileged access to those countries' natural resources, such as rights to gold and diamond mines, while the Russian military has been given access to strategic locations such as airbases and ports.{{cite news |title=How Russia's Wagner Group funds its role in Putin's Ukraine war by plundering Africa's resources |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-wagner-group-ukraine-war-putin-prigozhin-africa-plundering-resources/ |work=CBS News |date=16 May 2023 |access-date=25 August 2023 |archive-date=22 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230622145256/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-wagner-group-ukraine-war-putin-prigozhin-africa-plundering-resources/ |url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=Russia's Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, commercial concessions, rights violations, and counterinsurgency failure |url=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/ |website=Brookings Institution |date=8 February 2022 |access-date=25 August 2023 |archive-date=26 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240826160911/https://www.brookings.edu/articles/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/ |url-status=live}} This has been described as a neo-imperialist and neo-colonial kind of state capture, whereby Russia gains sway over countries by helping to keep the ruling regime in power and making them reliant on its protection, while generating economic and political benefits for Russia, without benefitting the local population.{{cite journal |last1=Doboš |first1=Bohumil |last2=Purton |first2=Alexander |title=Proxy Neo-colonialism? The Case of Wagner Group in the Central African Republic |journal=Insight on Africa |date=2024 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=7–21 |doi=10.1177/09750878231209705 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09750878231209705|doi-access=free }}{{cite web |title=How Russia is pursuing state capture in Africa |url=https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2022/03/21/how-russia-is-pursuing-state-capture-in-africa-ukraine-wagner-group/ |website=London School of Economics |date=21 March 2022}}{{cite news |title=Russia 'destabilising the West' with mercenaries in Africa, defence chiefs warn |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/03/10/russia-destabilising-west-mercenaries-africa-defence-chiefs/ |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=10 March 2022}} Russia has also gained geopolitical influence in Africa through election interference and spreading pro-Russian propaganda and anti-Western disinformation.{{cite news |title=Fact check: Russia's influence on Africa |url=https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-russias-influence-on-africa/a-66310017 |work=Deutsche Welle |date=27 July 2023}}{{cite web |title=Tracking Russian Interference to Derail Democracy in Africa |url=https://africacenter.org/spotlight/russia-interference-undermine-democracy-africa/ |publisher=Africa Center for Strategic Studies |date=21 June 2023}}{{cite news |title=War 'tour', football and graffiti: How Russia is trying to influence Africa |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg3lky7z7eo |work=BBC News |date=10 September 2024}} Russian PMCs have been active in the Central African Republic, Sudan, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mozambique, among other countries. They have been accused of killing civilians and human rights abuses. In 2024, the Wagner Group in Africa was merged into a new 'Africa Corps' under the direct control of Russia's Ministry of Defense.{{cite news |title=More control, less deniability: what next for Russia in Africa after Wagner? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/21/what-next-for-russia-in-africa-after-wagner-moscow-influence |work=The Guardian |date=21 May 2024}} Analysts for the Russian government have acknowledged the neo-colonial nature of Russia's policy towards Africa.{{cite web |last1=Watling |first1=Jack |last2=Danylyuk |first2=Oleksandr |last3=Reynolds |first3=Nick |title=The Threat from Russia's Unconventional Warfare Beyond Ukraine, 2022–24 |url=https://static.rusi.org/SR-Russian-Unconventional-Weapons-final-web.pdf |publisher=Royal United Services Institute |pages=14–23 |date=20 February 2024}} Writing for The Hill, Stephen Blank argues that Russia's actions and ambitions in Africa are "the quintessence of imperialism".{{cite news |last1=Blank |first1=Stephen |title=Imperialism revived: Moscow's objectives in Africa |url=https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4428844-imperialism-revived-moscows-objectives-in-africa/ |work=The Hill |date=25 January 2024}}

{{colbegin}}

• {{annotated link|Circassian genocide}}
• {{annotated link|Chechen–Russian conflict}}
• {{annotated link|Imperialism}}
• {{annotated link|Great Russian chauvinism}}
• {{annotated link|Katyn massacre}}
• {{annotated link|Military occupations by the Soviet Union}}
• {{annotated link|Neo-Sovietism}}
• {{annotated link|Neo-Stalinism}}
• {{annotated link|Polish Operation of the NKVD}}
• {{annotated link|Population transfer in the Soviet Union}}
• {{annotated link|Prison of the peoples}}
• {{annotated link|Putinism}}
• {{annotated link|Ruscism}}
• {{annotated link|Russian irredentism}}
• {{annotated link|Russian nationalism}}
• {{annotated link|Soviet invasion of Poland}}
• {{annotated link|Warsaw Pact}}
• {{annotated link|Winter War}}
• {{annotated link|Z (military symbol)}}

{{colend}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book |last=Langley |first=Andrew |title=The Collapse of the Soviet Union: The End of an Empire |publisher=Compass Point Books |date=2006 |isbn=0-7565-2009-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/collapseofsoviet0000lang}}
• {{cite book |last=Merkl |first=Peter H. |title=German Unification |publisher=Penn State Press |date=2004 |isbn=0-271-02566-2}}
• {{cite book |last1=Nekrich |first1=Aleksandr Moiseevich |last2=Ulam |first2=Adam Bruno |last3=Freeze |first3=Gregory L. |date=1997 |title=Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German–Soviet Relations, 1922–1941 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-10676-4}}
• {{cite book |last=Rajagopal |first=Balakrishnan |title=International law from below: development, social movements, and Third World resistance |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2003 |isbn=0-521-01671-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Rao |first=B. V. |title=History of Modern Europe Ad 1789–2002: A.D. 1789–2002 |publisher=Sterling Publishers |date=2006 |isbn=1-932705-56-2}}
• {{cite book |last=Roberts |first=Geoffrey |date=2006 |title=Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-11204-1}}
• {{cite book |last=Shirer |first=William L. |date=1990 |title=The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-671-72868-7}}
• {{cite book |last=Van Herpen |first=Marcel H. |date=2013 |title=Putinism: The Slow Rise of a Radical Right Regime in Russia |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=9781137282811 }}
• {{cite book |last=Wettig |first=Gerhard |date=2008 |title=Stalin and the Cold War in Europe |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-5542-6}}

{{refend}}

{{Russia topics}}

{{Russian invasion of Ukraine}}

Category:Foreign relations of Russia

Category:Imperialism

Category:Political history of Russia

Category:Russian irredentism

Imperialism

Category:Territorial evolution of Russia

Category:Empires

Imperialism

Category:Neocolonialism