Putin Says Representatives of Any Nationality Living in Russia have Complete Right to Call Themselves ‘Russkiye’

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 8 – Speaking to the Valdai Club, Vladimir Putin says that representatives of any nationality living in Russia have the complete right to call themselves Russians. He used the word for Russian (russky) that has historically referred only to those who are part of the ethnic Russian nation, yet another move against the non-Russian quarter of the population.
    They will be especially alarmed because this is the latest indication that the Kremlin leader is no longer prepared to accept the identification of rossissky, the Russian word for civic identification with the country, but will ultimately insist on the transition to russky, which is inherently ethnic.  
    Putin’s words (nazaccent.ru/content/43094-vladimir-putin-nazvat-sebya-russkim-mozhet-lyuboj-zhitel-strany-nezavisimo-ot-nacionalnosti/) are the latest step he has made in this direction, one long advocated by some in the Moscow elite and made more central to his declarations and actions since the intensification of conflict with the West.
    (For a discussion of the history of some recent developments in that process, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/05/putin-declares-ethnic-russians-state.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/08/non-russians-must-be-loyal-not-just-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/confrontation-with-west-has-led-moscow.html.)
    Many non-Russians will be offended by his words because they will read them as a further attack on the rights their nations had earlier and that Putin has been attacking consistently over the last two decades. But they will be joined in their anger by many ethnic Russians who won’t be pleased they must accept non-Russians who declare themselves Russians as Russkiye.