Putin approves new foreign policy doctrine based on ‘Russian World’

LONDON (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Monday permitted a brand new overseas coverage doctrine based mostly across the idea of a “Russian World”, a notion that conservative ideologues have used to justify intervention overseas in assist of Russian-speakers.

The 31-page “humanitarian coverage”, revealed greater than six months into the battle in Ukraine, says Russia ought to “shield, safeguard and advance the traditions and beliefs of the Russian World”.

Whereas introduced as a sort of delicate energy technique, it enshrines in official coverage concepts round Russian politics and faith that some hardliners have used to justify Moscow’s occupation of components of Ukraine and assist for breakaway pro-Russian entities within the east of the nation.

“The Russian Federation offers assist to its compatriots residing overseas within the fulfilment of their rights, to make sure the safety of their pursuits and the preservation of their Russian cultural id,” the coverage mentioned.

It mentioned that Russia’s ties with its compatriots overseas allowed it to “strengthen on the worldwide stage its picture as a democratic nation striving for the creating of a multi-polar world.”

Putin has for years been highlighting what he sees because the tragic destiny of some 25 million ethnic Russians who discovered themselves residing exterior Russia in newly unbiased states when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an occasion he has referred to as a geopolitical disaster.

Russia has continued to treat the previous Soviet area, from the Baltics to Central Asia, as its professional sphere of affect – a notion fiercely resisted by lots of these international locations in addition to by the West.

The brand new coverage says Russia ought to enhance cooperation with Slavic nations, China, and India, and additional strengthen its ties to the Center East, Latin America and Africa.

It mentioned Moscow ought to additional deepen its ties with Abkhazia and Ossetia, two Georgian areas recognised as unbiased by Moscow after its battle towards Georgia in 2008, in addition to the 2 breakaway entities in japanese Ukraine, the self-styled Donetsk Folks’s Republic and the Luhansk Folks’s Republic.

(Reporting by Reuters; Modifying by Mark Trevelyan and Alistair Bell)