Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a document that requires Russian authorities to increase the number of people who identify as Russian and speak Russian in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces since the 2022 invasion.
New national policy strategy to 2036
The document, published on Tuesday and titled “Strategy of Russia’s national policy in the period to 2036”, appears as a decree signed by Putin.
It presents measures to ensure that 95% of residents in Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia declare themselves Russian by 2036.
Annexation and historical unity
Six months after the Russian army invaded Ukraine, Putin announced the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia provinces to Russia, although Moscow does not fully control them.
The document states that the occupation of eastern Ukrainian provinces “created conditions for restoring the unity of the historical territories of the Russian state”.
Additional measures for identity and language
The decree emphasises the vital importance of adopting further measures to strengthen Russian identity overall, to consolidate the use of the Russian language, and to counter “efforts by unfriendly states to destabilise inter-ethnic and interfaith relations and create a rift in society”.
The results of this strategy “will be assessed by monitoring the achievement of the following target indicator by 2036: the level of overall Russian civic identity (civic self-awareness)”, which must reach “at least 95%”, the decree states.
Also read: Kremlin calls US peace plan efforts a serious process
For more videos and updates, check out our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@sigmaliveen.
