Kathrine Frich
The Kremlin has unveiled a new national strategy spelling out ambitious goals for reshaping identity across Russia and the territories it claims to control.
The document, set to guide policy for more than a decade, places special focus on regions seized during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
It signals a long-term effort to impose Russian civic and linguistic dominance in areas internationally recognised as Ukrainian.
New national strategy
According to reporting by Agerpres the decree titled “Russia’s National Policy Strategy until 2036” was published on Tuesday and signed by President Vladimir Putin.
The strategy instructs authorities to expand the number of people who identify as Russian and who use the Russian language in the four occupied regions, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
The document sets a national target: by 2036, at least 95 percent of the population should demonstrate “Russian civic identity (civic self-awareness).”
It also calls for measures to counter what Moscow describes as attempts by “unfriendly foreign states” to inflame divisions within Russia.
The Kremlin argues that control over the eastern Ukrainian territories has “created conditions for restoring the unity of the historical territories of the Russian state.”
Historical narrative
Reuters notes that Putin has repeatedly questioned whether Ukraine possesses a distinct historical identity separate from Russia.
Since the invasion in February 2022, he has framed the assault as an effort to “demilitarize and denazify” Ukraine and to defend Russian speakers in the east from alleged discrimination, claims Kyiv rejects.
The decree echoes this narrative by urging the state to strengthen the use of Russian and suppress efforts to challenge Moscow’s portrayal of the region’s past.
Ukrainian has been the sole state language since independence in 1991, and Kyiv denies that Russian speakers have faced systemic discrimination.
Zelensky responds
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv was ready to move ahead with a U.S.-backed plan aimed at ending what he described as Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.
But Ukrainian officials remain wary of any agreement that could force territorial concessions aligned with Moscow’s demands.
Despite annexation declarations six months after the invasion, Russia does not control all of the territories it claims. Reuters stresses that the incorporation of these regions is not recognised by most of the international community.
Sources: Reuters, Agerpres, Digi24.ro
