Russia (Post Ukraine War)

The Democratic Russian Republic (Russian: Демократическая Российская Республика, Demokraticheskaya Rossiyskaya Respublika) also known as Russia, is a country in Eastern Europe. It borders Ukraine to the south, Siberia to the east, Belarus to the west, Lithuania, Estoania and Latvia to the north. 
At one point, Russia was the world's largest country and had spanned both Europe and Asia. 
The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries CE. The first East Slavic state, Kievan Rus', arose in the 9th century, and in 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Rus' ultimately disintegrated, with the Grand Duchy of Moscow growing to become the Tsardom of Russia. By the early 18th century, Russia had vastly expanded through conquest, annexation, and the efforts of Russian explorers, developing into the Russian Empire, which remains the third-largest empire in history. However, with the Russian Revolution in 1917, Russia's monarchic rule was abolished and eventually replaced by the Russian SFSR—the world's first constitutionally socialist state. Following the Russian Civil War, the Russian SFSR established the Soviet Union with three other Soviet republics, within which it was the largest and principal constituent. At the expense of millions of lives, the Soviet Union underwent rapid industrialisation in the 1930s, and later played a decisive role for the Allies of World War II by leading large-scale efforts on the Eastern Front. With the onset of the Cold War, it competed with the United States for global ideological influence; the Soviet era of the 20th century saw some of the most significant Russian technological achievements, including the first human-made satellite and the first human expedition into outer space.
In 1991, the Russian SFSR emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the independent Russian Federation. A new constitution was adopted, which established a federal semi-presidential system. However, at the turn of the century, Russia's political system was dominated by Vladimir Putin, under whom the country has experienced democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. Russia has been involved militarily in a number of post-Soviet conflicts, which has included the internationally unrecognised annexations of Crimea in 2014 from neighbouring Ukraine, followed by the further annexation of four other regions in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine. The Putunist regime ended in 2029, though Putin himself was thought to have long-been dead since 2028.
The origins of the modern Russian state were laid out following the collapse of the Russian Federation, following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. After a disastrous defeat, NATO aided the Ukrainians with advanced AI to decimate the remnants of the Putinist government, culminating the Second Russian Civil War. Following the Kyiv Convention, the internationally-recognized territories of "New Russia" was shrunken significantly. 
Today, Russia has the largest economy and population in Europe, and has among one of the highest standards of living. Ever since the conclusion of the Russo-Ukrainian War and the NATO invasion of Russia, the country has transformed from an authoritarian and corrupt nation, to a free and liberal democracy. 
== History ==
=== NATO invasion and massive territorial losses ===
In 2029, with the invasion of Ukraine having been fully-reserved, as the Black Ops operations across Russia having disabled its nuclear weapons program, the NATO invasion finally began, forcing the Russian rump state to fight the "fair way".
In spite of inflicting considerable damage against NATO, the Fall of Moscow culminated in the last downfall of any vestige of the Putin regime, the Russian military surrendered, and the country lost large swaths of territory. While NATO was making their push from the south, north and west; China sent their forces into the east to oppose NATO.
MOscow was declared a NATO military occupation zone similar to Kosovo. The two main candidates for the presidency of the future Russian state boiled down to Denis Kapustin - who represented nationalists and conservatives, and Ilya Ponomarev, who represented liberals and progressives. 
While the majority of Russians seemed to favor Kapustin, NATO feared he would emerge to become like Putin, or even worse due to his ultra-nationalistic background. Ponomarev soon became the President-Elect of Russia, following a contrevoursial election (yet again), therefore Kapustin cut his ties with NATO, and refused to serve in the new NATO-backed armed forces of Russia under President Ponomarev.
=== Demilitarization and de-nucleation 2030-2032 ===
One of the first conditions of the Kiev Convention was the demilitarization of the Russian military. President Ilya Ponomarev authorized for the state-sponsored and NATO-backed de-nucleation of Russia. Although Russia was still allowed to produce its own military equipment unlike World War I Germany, however it was severely limited as to where it could place its forces. 
The Ponomarev presidency at this point, was a semblance of a NATO puppet state, with Moscow pretty-much taking orders from NATO., entering Russia into NATO's partnership program. 
This ultimate gave NATO a new enemy: China. Russia withdrew from the SCO, and renounced all alliances with China, backed Taiwan.
==== De-communization ====
In addition, one of President Ponomarev's major moves was similar to Boris Yeltsin: the de-communization and de-Sovietization of Russia in spite of him having once been a communist. The Communist Party of Russia and all communist groups were outlawed in the country, all works of communists were only to be provided in government-approved settings. All Soviet-oriented holidays were banned, and the Russian Revolution was then seen as a time of mourning.
President Ponomarev also nationalized mourning for the Katyn Massacre, Red Terror, Holodomour, Assassination of NIcholas II, and of course - the Invasion of Ukraine, which he claimed started Russia's downfall. 
==== 2036: End of de-militarization "era of headaches", Kapustin presidency ====
With the Republic of Siberia being a Chinese ally, NATO decided to end Russia's de-militarization program, and supported a strong re-arming of Russia to protect NATO from Chinese encroachment. A chunk of NATO leaders even supported the idea of making Siberia part of Russia again. This gave NATO its largest-ever headache, as they knew, China would be a much larger monster than Russia ever was. 
Therefore, Denis Kapustin defeated Ilya Ponomarev in the succeeding elections, though by a slight margin, since NATO knew of his war background. 
NATO gave Russia the same equipment it gave Ukraine - which ultimately, upsetted Kyiv initially, but upon knowing that Russia would still be kept in check, Kyiv eventually came to terms with it.
The re-arming of Russia created a double-headache for NATO, since it knew what a danger a fully-grown Russian state could pose. Under the Kapustin presidency, relations with China reached their lowest, with the armed forces claiming to have detained over 420 Chinese spies and covert military agents from the country.
Kapustin was alleged to have supported several armed insurrections in Kazakhstan and Siberia against Chinese troops, a number of assassination attempts between Russian and Chinese leaders also occured. In spite of this however, relations with NATO improved drastically, with huge milestones set in Russia's relations with the Nordic and Baltic states. Russia emerged as NATO's largest and most important partner, and he successfully allowed for the decreasing of NATO personnel in Moscow.
However he still held deep grievances against NATO - and continued to support Serbia against Kosovar independence. He is alleged to have granted asylum to many Kosovo Serbs.
==== 2040: Rapid recovery ====
Ksenia Sobchak succeeded Kapustin as the president of Russia, becoming the first-ever woman president of the country. President Sobchak legalized gay marriage in the country, and truly oriented Russia towards a European-style political system.