How putin Justifies the Eradication of Russia’s National Minorities
A speech by dictator vladimir putin—widely circulated by russian propaganda—delivered at the council on interethnic relations shows that putin is openly copying soviet-era rhetoric and policy toward national minorities.
▫️ putin’s remarks relied on classically soviet slogans: “russian culture and the russian language are the guarantee of russia’s unity”; “enemies abroad are trying to destabilize the russian federation by exploiting interethnic issues”; national centres not controlled by moscow are “weapons of an information war against the russian federation”; attempts to “inflame the smallest contradictions within the russian federation are work in the interests of russia’s enemies,” and so on.
As the Center has emphasized, the revival of rhetoric about the “unity of the peoples of the russian federation” is a soviet-style propaganda smokescreen used to conceal a policy of ethnocide against russia’s indigenous peoples.
The kremlin’s true goal is the rapid eradication of the national identities, languages, and cultures of all peoples of the russian federation and their replacement with russian identity.
