<i>Russkiy Mir</i>: The Geopolitics of Russian Compatriots Abroad
Journal: Geopolitics
Year: 2018

This paper argues that the instrumental reference to Russian ‘compatriots’ in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 served as a discursive framing to justify contradictions in Russian approaches to state sovereignty to an international audience. Contrary to teleological readings of Russian foreign policy, however, the paper argues that while Russian diaspora policies have been tapped into, the iterative and partially contradictory development thereof on a governmental level suggests that these wer