The best way to broach the question of Russians in the near abroad is to cite a passage from an appeal addressed by the KOSO to Russian authorities and politicians:

According to the 1989 census, about 25 million individuals consider themselves to be of Russian nationality, of whom two-thirds were concentrated in Ukraine and Kazakhstan (see Table 9). This is the total number of those who can be strictly defined as ethnic Russians, in the Russian language, russkie. But before going any further, a brief terminological digression is in order to allow the reader who is not an expert in Russian affairs to fully understand the context.

In Russian, the term used to denominate ‘Russia’ as a geographical and state entity is Rossiya, while there are two terms, russkie and rossiyane, to indicate its inhabitants. They are not synonymous as the first is used to define ethnic Russians and the second to refer to all individuals historically settled in the territory of Russia but originating from any of a large number of other nationalities besides Russian. In the same way. there is a difference - inevitably lost in most translations - between the two adjectives russkiy and rossiyskiy: the first is used to indicate what is ethnically Russian and the second all that pertains to Russia, or better, Rossiya, the territorial state entity. The name of the country is Rossiyskaya Federatsiya and not Russkaya Federatsiya, so the correct translation should be ‘Federation of Russia’ rather than ‘Russian Federation’. All federal institutions (government, parliament, television, etc.) are always connoted by the adjective rossiyskiy and not russkiy. President Yeltsin’s speeches to the nation are always addressed to rossiyane and not to russkie. Finally it is worth pointing out that Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution of Russia states that ‘The subject of sovereignty and the only source of power in the Federation of Russia is represented by its multinational people’(Konstitutsiya Rossiyskoy Federatsii 1993).

By choice and necessity, post-Soviet Russia is a state officially defined not as multi-ethnic but as multinational. The individuals living abroad who may return to Russia are very seldom defined in ethnic terms alone. In the text cited above, we can see a contrast between the use of the words ‘Russians’ and ‘compatriots’ which, if one uses the strict definition of its root patria, does not refer to individuals belonging to the same ethnically defined nation but rather to individuals who share loyalty to the same state.

Though the expressions ‘Russians’ or ‘ethnic Russians’ can be found in newspaper articles (Pilkington 1998: 26), they are never used in legislative acts and official policy documents (see infra), and very rarely in academic works (see, for instance, Deev et al. 1997; Rybakovskiy et al. 1995; Tishkov 1996, 1997) and conferences (see for instance Filippova 1996; Carnegie Moscow Center 1997).³⁷

Widely used expressions are ruskoyazichnoe naselenie (Russian-speaking population) or russkoyazichnye (Russian-speakers), which thus include, not only ethnic Russians, but also individuals of other nationalities who speak Russian as their first language. As indicated in the Table 18, the 1989 census reports that about 11 million individuals outside of Russia in the USSR declared a nationality other than Russian, yet considered Russian their mother-tongue.

This reference to language might be interpreted as manifestation of a definition based on a link to Russia mediated by culture rather than by the nation or the state. There are, however, other expressions that clearly relate to the state and its multinational character, namely rossijskij sootechestvenniki (‘compatriots of Russia’, different from ‘Russian compatriots’ which would be russkie sootechestvenniki) or etnicheskie rossiyane (which could be translated as ‘ethnic inhabitants of Russia’). Both of these expressions go beyond the definition by language to include those individuals residing outside of Russia and belonging to nationalities who have territorial autonomy in Russia (for instance, Tatar) and who do not necessarily speak Russian as their first language. Joining these two pairs expressions (Russian-speakers and compatriots of Russia) we get a total of about 38 million individuals who resided outside of Russia but within the USSR in 1989, for whom the Russian Federation should be responsible:

• ethnic Russians (25,289,000)
• non-Russian Russian-speakers (11,247,000)
• individuals of nationalities with territorial autonomy in the Russian Federation (1,665,000)³⁸

This is, however, only my attempt to reconstruct a concept on which there is no consensus among Russian scholars and which has not yet been clearly defined in official documents. Since 1994, the most widely used term in official documents and speeches, as well as in the names of the official bodies mentioned earlier, is sootechestvenniki (compatriots). The first legislative act on the issue was presidential decree No. 1681 of 11 August 1994 ‘On the basic directions of state policy of the Russian Federation in relation to the compatriots living abroad’; this was followed by governmental decree No. 1064 of 31 August 1994 ‘On the measures to support compatriots abroad’. These two legislative acts formally introduced the term compatriots without, however, giving any hint as to their definition.

The first attempt to define the term can be found in the ‘Declaration on the support of the diapora of Russia³⁹ and on the protection of compatriots of Russia,⁴⁰ adopted by the Duma on 8 December 1995.⁴¹ According to that definition, the term compatriots may include:

• Russian citizens temporarily or permanently residing abroad;
• individuals with dual citizenship (one of which is Russian);
• citizens of the former USSR who have received foreign citizenship or have not yet defined their citizenship;
• individuals who have emigrated from the territory of the Russian empire, the USSR, the Soviet Russian Federation (RSFSR), or the post-Soviet Russian Federation, and their descendants.

This astonishingly broad definition has been refined in the proposal of a new federal law on state policy for the protection and support of the ‘diaspora of Russia’ and the ‘compatriots of Russia’, under discussion in the Duma since the end of 1996 (Gosudarstvennaya Duma 1997). The bill defines the two concepts as follows:

The apparently incomprehensible distinction between the two concepts lies in that those who fall under the definition of the ‘diaspora of Russia’ and are citizens of the Russian Federation can rely on their passport to receive support, whereas the others, after declaring their link to Russia, can be granted the official status of ‘compatriots of Russia’ (Ibid.: Part II, Articles 3–5). Since the spiritual or cultural link can also relate to one of the federal subjects, according to point 2 of Article 1, this implies, for instance, that the descendants of individuals of North Caucasian nationality who escaped from the Russian Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century after the Caucasian War are also included by the definition.

Broad definitions are also contained in two proposals advanced by Moscow NGOs for a new law on repatriation (Gannushkina 1997; KOSO 1997b). The first, for instance, clearly states that, given Russia's specificity as a multinational state, the definition of ‘repatriates’ cannot follow the example of the German or Israeli experience (Gannushkina 1997: 2). Therefore the Russian Federation, as the legal successor of the USSR and as a multinational state, should recognise as ‘repatriates’ all individuals voluntary settling in its territory and considering Russia as the country of their cultural and civic identification (Ibid.). Naturally such excessively broad definitions have been strongly criticised.

Valery Tishkov recognises the validity of a definition of compatriots based on voluntary self-identification but suggests that an extremely broad definition of those who can self-identify as compatriots responds more to the political agenda of the proponents than to concrete policy objectives (Carnegie Moscow Center 1997: 11). Vladimir Mukomel criticises the lack of a distinction between the new abroad and the old abroad and argues that such definitions are so inclusive that they turn out to be void of any policy content (Ibid.: 32–33). Andrei Cima, at the time Deputy Director of the regional representation of the UNHCR in Russia, stresses that the efforts made to define the compatriots as well as the general conception of state policy toward them are of little practical value, arguing that the most important task is simply to try to offer concrete help to individuals when they return (Ibid.: 28–29).

I will now proceed to illustrate the complexity surrounding the question of compatriots and the various positions of actors and structures. The main difference between the position of the presidential and governmental apparatus, which more or less coincides with that of centrist and democrat groups in the Duma, and that of the parliamentary opposition is that the former do not openly declare and share the latter’s radical neo-imperialist attitude. On the other hand, there is quite a consensus at both the state and the political levels on the fact that Russia’s priority is to defend the compatriots’ right to stay in the near abroad and to support their integration there, rather than stimulate and organise their large-scale repatriation.

In the early phase of the post-Soviet transition, the position of the presidency, still surrounded mostly by advisors from the liberal intelligentsia, was substantially different. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful August putsch and during 1992, Yeltsin assured that Russia would have helped all those who intended to return, suggesting that repatriation was the only realistic solution to the problem of the diaspora (Khazanov 1995: 89). This position was in line with the early Kozyrev direction of Russian foreign policy, when relations with the US and the West in general were the priority, while the issue of NISs was given secondary importance.

It was only a temporary situation, however, and already at the end of 1992, in part due to pressure from the opposition in the Supreme Soviet, Russia’s policy toward the new abroad became increasingly aggressive and the question of compatriots took on geopolitical importance (Crow 1992; Checkel 1992; Lough 1993). This evolution can easily be observed in the public statements made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE), of which the following are only a sampling. In an interview published in June 1992, Kozyrev, in discussing Russian foreign policy, minimised the issues of the compatriots, denying that they had any strategic relevance for Russia.⁴² In 1994, the MAE position had already changed radically, and its spokesperson Grigorij Karashin warned of the discrimination to which compatriots were allegedly subjected, forecasting that if things did not change by 1997, 6 million individuals would arrive in Russia.⁴³ On 18 April 1995, after the Estonian parliament approved a new law on citizenship considered discriminatory in Moscow (Codagnone 1997: 223), most news agencies reported Kozyrev’s declaration that Russia had the right to impose economic sanctions and even use force to protect the rights of its compatriots in the new abroad.⁴⁴ Naturally this position did not change after Evgeniy Primakov substituted Kozyrev at the head of MAE. On 17 October 1996 for instance, during a meeting in Moscow with UN Commissioner on Refugees Sadako Ogata, Primakov insisted on criticising Estonian and Latvian policy, warning about a mass emigration of Russians from the two Baltic republics.⁴⁵

A relevant role in determining Russian policy toward compatriots in the new abroad has been played by two structures which are a sort of foreign policy ‘think tank’ and at the same time act as lobbying organisations, namely the Fund for Russian Foreign Policy and the Foreign Policy and Defence Council (Crow 1992; Zviglyanich 1996). Particularly influential has been the Foreign Policy and Defence Council (FPDC) under the leadership of Sergey Karaganov, who was long a personal advisor to the president.⁴⁶ The FPDC has also worked in close collaboration with Vneshchnyaya Razvedka (Foreign Intelligence) headed by Primakov until he became foreign minister. The FPDC made public first in August 1992⁴⁷ and later in May 1994⁴⁸ two very influential position papers on Russian foreign policy, containing a section on the question of compatriots abroad. The contents of these two papers were included in a Foreign Intelligence document which was published in part in Nezavisimaya gazeta (20 September 1994) and marked the formal change in Russia’s attitude toward the new abroad. According to these documents, there are a number of factors which objectively lead toward a ‘re-integration’ between Russia and the NISs, one of which is the presence of the compatriots, who should be encouraged and helped to stay where they are instead of returning to Russia.

It is probably no coincidence that the late summer of 1994 saw the adoption of the presidential decree and the governmental decree mentioned above on the policy toward compatriots abroad⁴⁹ in which the policy of keeping them where they are received a formal and official – albeit rather disguised – sanction. It is worth reporting an excerpt from the governmental decree:

It is clear then that the priority of the Russian state is to defend the right to stay; and that return is not encouraged, but seen as an extrema ratio. Of the support measures contemplated by this document, the most predominant are political and diplomatic initiatives that Russia should undertake to defend the rights of its compatriots, while those that would entail an allocation from the federal budget are much more limited.

The governmental decree discussed above, as well as most public statements made by Russian authorities, consistently couch the issue of compatriots in terms of the defence of human rights, trying to find a frame of reference in international norms and agreements. On the other hand, the selectivity in their criticism and attack of NISs indirectly shows that there is a geopolitical agenda underlying this position. Grafova, for instance, affirmed that the situation of compatriots in Estonia and Latvia is not the most difficult, but is always raised as a flag, while little mention is made of compatriots in Central Asia (Carnegie Moscow Center 1997: 39). It can reasonably be argued that in singling out the situation of compatriots in the two Baltic republics, Russian authorities are actually trying to exercise pressure on these states which want to be and partially are out of Russia’s sphere of influence.

If the general strategic line and supporting discourses at the highest level of state authority moved from the ‘right to return’ to the ‘right to stay’, at the lower level of concretely dealing with the actual migration of compatriots, the FMS’ priority changed from ‘assistance’ to ‘control’. The change can once again be seen in the views expressed by FMS director Tatyana Regent. At the end of 1992, Regent affirmed that the population inflow from the near abroad, expected to consist mostly of individuals of working age with a good proportion of highly qualified specialists, would greatly benefit Russia, offsetting the demographic decline and bringing an input of human capital into the process of economic development (Moskovskaya pravda, 25 November 1992). Yet, in 1994 she wrote:

In another interview tellingly entitled ‘Migration should not be a flight….’,⁵⁰ Regent described the FMS policy of ‘migration containment’ (sderzhivanie migratsii) as an attempt to contain spontaneous migration and prevent the arrival of individuals with no place to go. This new approach had concrete repercussions in the restrictive nature of the 1995 amendment to the law on forced migrants discussed earlier. The new version of the law is more restrictive both in the definition of those entitled to the status of forced migrant and in that it reduces state obligations (in particular those of the FMS) towards those receiving such status. The accent is now more on helping forced migrants to help themselves through the provision of measures such as long-term zero interest loans, and the new orientation of the law clearly matches FMS’ efforts to redefine its institutional profile and distance itself from assistance issues to stress control functions.

This de facto change in the FMS’ profile is in line with changes towards migration issues that have taken place at the higher levels of power in Moscow. It can also be explained as the natural result of organisational developments and interests, since controlling and monitoring are more ‘appropriate’ tasks for bureaucrats than assistance. It must be acknowledged, however, that it is also due to the financial problems the FMS has encountered since its establishment. The FMS, as I was told by FMS officials in Moscow, has chronically been under-funded and its resources scarce and insufficient to cope with all of its institutional duties.

As shown in the Table 19, for the 1995 Federal Migration Program, the federal budget allocated 1,463 billion roubles (at the time equivalent to about $290 million) to the FMS of which only 621.7 billion (about $130 million) had actually been received at the beginning of 1996. It is clear that with that kind of shortage of resources, no grand programme of assistance can be undertaken and more restrictive policies would naturally be welcomed by any organisation struggling with such financial problems.

In the political arena, the nationalist and communist opposition inside the Duma, as well as other nationalist political parties and organisations not represented in parliament, have maintained a more radically neo-imperialist stance concerning Russia’s relations with the NISs in general and the defence of compatriots' rights, in particular. Besides favouring the policy of keeping them where they are, the Duma has supported the separatist mobilisation of Russians in regions where they are a majority, such as the Transdniestr (Moldova), Crimea and North Kazakhstan (Codagnone 1997: 242–44, 250–54, 292). The Duma's Committee for CIS Affairs and Relations with Compatriots and Council of Compatriots have undertaken several operations in support of nationalist organisations of compatriots in the new abroad which had quite a resonance in the media. In 1994, the Committee, for instance, successfully mobilised for liberation of the nationalist activist Boris Suprunyuk, who had been imprisoned by Kazakh authorities on the charge of promoting ‘inter-ethnic discord’; in 1995, the latter financially and legally supported representatives of the Russian community in Sevastopol in their fight against the decision of a local court to close down their newspaper.

It must be stressed that, without going so far as to support separatist movements like the nationalist and communist opposition, the so-called democrats ( for instance Yegor Gaidar’s ‘Russia’s Choice’ and Grigory Yavlinsky’s ‘Yabloko’) and centrist parties (for instance, Viktor Chernomyrdin’s ‘Our Home is Russia’) support a more assertive position toward the NISs and the policy of making integration of compatriots a priority over their repatriation. This was particularly evident during the electoral campaign for the 1995 parliamentary elections.

This increasingly large consensus in emphasising the ‘compatriots’ right to stay’ is a manifestation of a slow but steady process by which both the government and a large part of the democratic or moderately nationalist intellectual elite have moved closer to the position of the nationalist and communist opposition (Solovej 1995). Though large, this consensus is not complete and dissident voices can also be heard in Russia, stressing the right to choose between integration and repatriation and to receive adequate assistance from state structures upon return.

Most Russian scholars agree that freedom of choice should be a priority and that the state should neither plan a large-scale repatriation nor force compatriots to stay where they are (see Carnegie Moscow Center 1997), but they are also divided between those who favour repatriation and those who lean more toward helping compatriots stay and integrate (Filippova 1997c: 20–25).

By analysing the content of all major Moscow newspapers over the 1992–1996 period, Kul’bachevskaya (1997) has shown that there is group of dailies (Izvestiya, Literaturnaya gazeta, Obshchaya gazeta, Rossiyskaya gazeta, Segodnya) that has consistently published articles in which: a) forced migration is seen as one of the most pressing problems requiring an immediate response; b) the repatriates are considered a resource for Russia’s rebirth; c) the government’s policy of keeping compatriots in the NISs and the indifference of central and local authorities to the problem of receiving and helping those who return settle down is criticised.

The strongest and most active voice against the government policy has been and is that of NGOs and migrant organisations, represented in Moscow by KOSO and, since 1996, by the Forum of Migrant Organisations. They argue that, without interfering with individual choice, the state policy should do everything it can to facilitate repatriation. This position is sustained not only from a human rights perspective, but also by pragmatic – for example demographic – arguments: repatriation would offset the population decline which, according to Goskomstat estimates, may reach 16 million individuals within the next two decades (KOSO 1996: 7). According to Moscow activists, this change in policy would require, first of all, a law on repatriation clearly establishing the right to return and receive assistance upon arrival. This is a necessity because the law on forced migrants limits the granting of that status and the benefits that go with it to those who can prove that they are victims of discrimination. The discomfort that compatriots may experience under new conditions in the NISs is, however, more akin to a continuing condition rather than an acute situation which can be shown, with reference to concrete facts, to have been caused by discrimination. Furthermore the category of forced migrant creates tensions with the NISs as it is an implicit accusation of discrimination.