Kremlin Fails to Understand Ethnic Russians in Baltic Countries Won’t Move to Russia For Money Alone, ‘Krisis Kopilka’ Portal Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 15 – Because Putin and those around him are overwhelmingly motivated by money, they tend to assume that everyone else is motivated in a similar way and adopt policies based on that assumption. But the Krizis-Kopilka portal argues that assumption is false and frequently gets the Kremlin into trouble.

            The independent portal which focuses on problems facing the Putin regime gives as an example Moscow’s approach to trying to attract ethnic Russians living in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, an approach which focuses on money alone and which up to now has failed as a result (https://krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/104598).

            To boost the number and share of ethnic Russians in the population of the Russian Federation, the Putin regime has set up a program to encourage those it calls compatriots to “return” to Russia where they are told they will do better economically than they are doing in the countries where they now live.

            But the ethnic Russians living in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania aren’t buying that argument. On the one hand, Krizis-Kopilka says, they live in countries which compare themselves with the standard of living in Western Europe and not with Russia and thus are not attracted to Moscow’s call for financial reasons.

            But on the other – and this is far more significant – ethnic Russians living in the Baltic countries do not see themselves as a diaspora and thus do not view the Russian Federation as their homeland. Instead, at present, most of the ethnic Russians in these three countries were born there and are more likely to view them rather than Russia as their homelands.

            Ethnic Russians in the Baltic countries often complain about the policies of these countries regarding them, but they do so as citizens or at least long-term residents rather than as Russian compatriots, however much Moscow thinks of them in that way and appeals to them on financial grounds.

            The clearest evidence that Moscow’s approach isn’t working with the ethnic Russians of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is that in 2023, the last year for which there is comparable data, only 640 people moved from the Baltic countries to the Russian Federation, somewhat less than moved to Germany alone and far less than moved to other European countries.

            In short, although Krizis-Kopilka doesn’t say so, the ethnic Russians of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have overwhelmingly become “Baltic Russians,” a group which speaks Russian, is concerned about how it is treated, but identifies not as part of Putin’s Russian nation. Because he doesn’t understand that, this shift in identity is likely to continue to intensify.