Staunton, February 6 — Over the last two year period for which statistics are available, only 37 ethnic Russians moved from Estonia to the Russian Federation despite Moscow’s program for resettling what it calls “compatriots” and the regular complaints of Russian officials that Estonia is oppressing its ethnic Russian minority. In February 6 issue of […]
Tag: Ethnic Minorities
Kremlin, Worried About Nationality Problems, Boosts Training of Ethnic Specialists
Staunton, December 13 – The Kremlin has announced plans to make “ethno-politics” a course of study in three leading Russian universities and to quadruple the number of stipends for students in this field, an indication of Kremlin nervousness about nationality problems and of its interest in forming a new orthodoxy on how to address them. […]
Moscow Preparing to Play Citizenship Card in Estonia and Latvia
Staunton, September 28 – Just as it did in Ukraine, Moscow is preparing again to play the citizenship card in Estonia and Latvia, muddying the waters as to who is “a Russian” and who is thus part of Vladimir Putin’s “Russian world” and worthy of Moscow’s defense whether any of them want that “defense” or […]
To Weaken Crimean Tatars, Moscow Pushing New Multi-Ethnic Group in the Russian Occupied Peninsula
Staunton, August 1 – In order to weaken the Crimean Tatars by muddying the water about them, the Russian occupation authorities are backing a new group that would combine Azov Greeks, Don Armenians and Crimean Tatars into a single group representing what its organizers call the “older resident” communities on the peninsula. These disparate groups, […]
Moscow Using Refugees from Ukraine to Shift Ethnic Balance in Non-Russian Republics
Staunton, July 31 – Moscow is directing predominantly ethnic Russian refugees from the fighting in southeastern Ukraine into non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation in a transparent effort to change the ethnic balance in those republics and further Russianize them, according to Marat Kulsharipov, a historian at Bashkortostan State University. In an interview to RFE/RL’s […]
Belarus or Northern Kazakhstan Could Be Next Eastern Ukraine, Tishkov Says
Staunton, 1 June – If the leaders of Kazakhstan or Belarus adopt policies like those Ukraine did, there is no guarantee that those two countries might suffer the fate that the eastern regions of Ukraine are now facing, according to Valery Tishkov, director of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and a former Russian […]
Russian Nationalist Charged in Kazakhstan for Training Kazakh Nationalists
Staunton, May 23 – The Kazakhstan authorities have brought criminal charges against Aleksandr Belov, the lead of “The Russians” national movement for recruiting and training ethnic Kazakh nationalists as part of a plan to destabilize the political system in that Central Asian republic. Belov’s alleged actions, interesting as they are in their own right, are […]
Crimean Tatars View Russia as If It Were Still the Soviet Union, Zorin Says
Staunton, May 23 – Vladimir Zorin, a former Russian nationalities minister, says that the Crimean Tatars continue to think about themselves in terms drawn from the Soviet past but have infused these terms with anti-Soviet attitudes and that this contradiction explains many of their current problems. In an interview given to Yuliya Taratura of TV […]
How Putin Launched the Circassian National Movement
Staunton, May 21 – It is now common ground that Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea and subversion of southeastern Ukraine have done more to boost and solidify the national identity of Ukrainians and their commitment to taking the steps necessary to be part of the West than have the actions of anyone else. But it […]
Circassians Block Road to Protest Killing of One of Their Own
Staunton, May 16 – – Reflecting tensions between the Circassians and the Russian authorities in the run up to the commemoration later this month of the 150th anniversary of the tsarist expulsion of their ancestors and of the readiness of Circassians to defend their rights and dignity, a group of Circassians blocked a highway last […]