Nowadays there are many academic discussions and conferences on decolonization of the Russian Federation and the post-Soviet space more broadly. Scholars discuss peculiarities of this vague term and argue about how decolonization can be adopted as an approach to research and teaching. For an overview of these discussions one can read Alima Bissenova´s essay (Bissenova 2021). This essay will not touch upon them, nor will it discuss the scientific meaning and peculiarities of this term (Abashin 2022). The current essay aims to address the audience of public speakers and civic activists as well as a broader readership instead.

In my view, many public figures speak about ‘decolonization’ without careful consideration of all the caveats of using this term in the current political and social environment (not the caveats of decolonization as a principle). Below I will try to highlight the caveats of using the term and propose some alternatives instead. I believe that the discursive alternatives that I am proposing will not challenge the essence of decolonization or the desires of ethnic activists and their supporters. On the contrary, these alternatives can help to attract more supporters. It is important to decolonize the Russian Federation in all meanings of this very vague word, but in order to do so one should understand how this process can actually be carried out in current circumstances. In order to change any social environment, it is crucial to identify who can promote this change and who might resist it. There are many activists across the globe who are speaking up about decolonization on behalf of thousands of indigenous people and it does them nothing but good. Decolonization initiatives are a global trend. But it is important to understand that the current specific historical moment for Russian society, namely, the ongoing war under patriotic banners, gives the decolonial movement serious disadvantages.

If we consider decolonization as a fight against the privileges of the white dominant group that has historically conquered the territory, it would be, firstly, an anti-colonial movement but not a de-colonial one since decolonization often implies radical deconstruction of any hierarchies (although it has various meanings). Secondly, it will result — and already is resulting — in resistance from former colonizers. The escalation of another societal conflict and promotion of another split within a disintegrated and alienated society can lead to millions of real deaths on both sides: the minorities and the dominant group. Therefore, one should think of an umbrella term that could unite people against their main enemy — the authoritarian regime. Ideas matter, and so do words. It is important to choose them carefully. Finding shared ideas with the dominant groups inside Russia is the only way to promote real decolonization, not just talk about it for our individual benefit when we are living safely abroad.

Why is the term ‘decolonization’ dangerous?

The danger of talking about decolonization in Russia in the current context is twofold. The most obvious reason is that calls for decolonization are in fact criminalized in Russia because they are equated with calls for the country´s disintegration or minority separatism. Therefore, those who speak openly about it are at risk of criminal charges. This is a danger to individuals, but there is another, less obvious and greater danger: consequential violent conflicts between the dominant and minority groups in many Russian regions, if enough people do indeed equate decolonization with separatism. In the newly formed Russian Federation, the secessionist claims were more about economic incentives, therefore the agenda attracted a broader population of the regions and included the dominant ethnic group (Hagendoorn et al. 2008). Today claims are based more on cultural and identitarian grievances about which consensus is harder to reach. They include demands to rearrange the established order in many social domains including those with which the majority is satisfied.

Moreover, as the public discourse on decolonization and my own observations show, in the current circumstances many representatives of the dominant group consider the conversation about the decolonization of the Russian Federation an attack on them. Research on other contexts of symbolic struggles over majority domination in multinational states confirms that the majority’s resistance to changes to even symbolic hierarchies (or their elimination) is logical and leads to conflict escalation (Basta 2021). Consequently, the often accusatory tone of the current decolonial discourse makes the conversation very emotional for both sides and leads to polarization instead of constructive dialogue. This polarization is very useful for the Kremlin for two reasons: it channels anger at the regime towards ethnically defined out-groups and it creates additional cleavages within Russian society.

While the grievances about multilayered inequalities based on ethnic minority origin are more than relevant — per capita war losses are highest in the ethnic republics (Mediazona and BBC Russian Service 2026) — they also have distinctive affective foundations. In the absence of any accessible leverage or means of influencing Putin and the Kremlin, critically minded people in Russia, and also those who recently fled it, express their emotions towards newly found enemies at whom they can actually direct their anger. They seek out those whom they can actually blame and topics which they may actually influence. The March 2024 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall is the best illustration of how this works. With the help of relentless propaganda, people were quick to direct their anger at labour migrants from Central Asia (Caspian Policy Center 2024) — vulnerable groups whom they can really punish instead of asking questions and demanding accountability from the security services who failed to protect innocent people and prevent this terrorist attack. But this applies not just to the domestic Russian audience but also to oppositional decolonial activists. When emotions instigated by the war run high and there are few ways to express them, an enemy in the form of an ethnic other is a convenient candidate. This ethnic other might be an ordinary Russian for representatives of minority groups. Or it might be an ethnic minority activist who seems too nationalistic in the eyes of a liberal Russian opposition that mostly originates from Moscow or St Petersburg.

In other words, it is easier to express anger at the regime by directing it at an ethnic other than to engage in a dialogue with curiosity and an open-minded attitude. Curiosity is welcomed when there is no existential danger around and one might take a risk and be curious. It is a luxury for people directly or indirectly touched by the war when insecurity is omnipresent in their lives. This does not mean we all should stop talking about racism, historically determined wealth inequality, the overlap of ethnic, territorial and economic inequalities and adopt a certain liberal agenda that ignores all of it. That overlap is not abstract: in the Volga region, two thirds of identified war dead come from villages and towns of under 100,000 people (Idel.Realii 2026).

I only mean to show that the perspective ‘let’s release our hard emotions on the ethnically defined enemy’ distracts from the current common goal, which undoubtedly includes fighting racism and various other inequalities. That goal is promoting a true democratic agenda among the broader Russian population. This escalation of social conflict in Russian society based on the idea of confrontation with an alien Other can only lead to a vicious circle that can end in violent conflict. Research shows that ethnic secessionism is rarely an initial goal of ethnic minority groups, but it often ends up there because of the dynamic of the struggle between minorities and traditionally dominant groups (Basta 2021). Therefore, compromise must be the first step from both sides, and since I belong to one of the ethnic minority groups and have spent over fifteen years researching diversity in Russia and giving voice to ethnic minorities, I feel I can address the decolonization activists in this essay, not the liberal Moscow intelligentsia to whom I do not belong in any respect. Decolonial activists, I argue, must find a new vocabulary. They must aim to reach a wider audience.

When modern democratic ideals meet an autocratic context

Decolonization is a fancy word that is popular across the globe. Many indigenous communities talk about it and demand it. There are many contexts that could benefit from this approach, including North America, where these debates are now mainstream, yet with modest results. But to talk about decolonization in an authoritarian context to people who are fed propaganda whose main slogan is ‘the West wants to destroy us by splitting us up’ demands careful consideration for several reasons.

On the one hand, decolonization is used by the Kremlin itself as a slogan in the Russo-Ukrainian war, meaning that Russia aims to decolonize a world colonized by the US (Budraitskis 2023). On the other hand, Kremlin propaganda presents decolonial initiatives as terrorist activities that aim to disintegrate the Russian Federation and make it weak by splitting it into pieces — which is what decolonial activists, according to Russian propaganda, wish for, hiding it behind slogans of greater autonomy for ethnically labelled territories. Many research participants of ethnic minority origin are afraid of such claims and are very cautious about the slogans of decolonization. Those of them who stay in Russia, at least.

Second, to fight racism associated with ongoing colonization in an authoritarian society by calling the majority racist can work only up to a point. One needs instead to expose and criticize structural and institutional disparities and injustice, rather than holding groups responsible for them. Thus, this criticism should be directed at the regime that has created (or maintained) these disparities, not at the ethnically defined group. Human nature is the same everywhere; this is why we are seeing the rise of right-wing populism across the globe: the logic of us vs them is exploited by populists to redirect the grievances of the broader population from addressing the problem of the super-rich 1% to blaming immigrants instead. Not groups but structures, institutions and economic incentives can prevent racism. I believe that by simply revealing human nature one does not change it, but by creating structures that set limits one can change a whole society.

Of course, revealing existing inequalities and talking about them publicly is crucial for change in communal ideology and, as a consequence, in social structures. This is how it works in liberal democracies at least. First Nations in Canada appeal to the values of justice and equality when they (most of the time unsuccessfully) try to establish new university departments or change university curricula while promoting a decolonial agenda. This works because these values matter to Canadian citizens and because democracy is a battle of ideas. Would the same work in a repressive autocracy like contemporary Russia? I think yes, to the extent to which society is affected by global trends, but it has rather serious limits. An atomized society experiencing a high level of repression and widespread fear is less receptive to values of justice than the populace of a democracy. Moreover, historically, the left and right in Russia are suspicious of identitarian politics due to the communist past. This historical legacy of the formation of two political extremes should also be taken into account when one wants to make coalitions or promote important ideas by attracting more followers.

It is also important to understand that there are no real influential actors with an interest in decolonizing the Russian Federation from the outside (Morris 2023). Western politicians need Russia to stay united because they do not want multiple unpredictable warlords with nuclear weapons in their hands should it collapse into pieces. They do not want another wave of refugees should there be bloodshed over the borders of new states, because their voters want security and are increasingly opposed to immigration. This means that no one will decolonize Russia, except those who really live inside its vast territories. For now, to promote the discourse of decolonization is dangerous for them.

Therefore, there should be a discursive turn from targeting colonizers as a certain (ethnically defined) group to targeting unjust structures and institutions, in other words, the regime. The change of language would also help. Of course, for building a career in the West it makes sense to keep speaking the fashionable language of decolonization discourse — it is the mainstream, after all. But for pursuing feasible change it could be much more effective to replace the term ‘decolonization’ with several more specific terms that spell out its meaning: equality, dignity, justice, human and linguistic rights, quality of life, ecological security, diversity, inclusion, political participation, rule of law, wealth redistribution etc. These are all constitutive elements of decolonization and by promoting not decolonization but inclusion, diversity and social justice as values we create a positive agenda that can unite us all. 

References

Abashin, S. (2022) "Decolonising Decolonisation". SICE Blog, Austrian Academy of Sciences. https://www.oeaw.ac.at/sice/sice-blog/decolonising-decolonisation

Basta, K. (2021) The Symbolic State: Minority Recognition, Majority Backlash, and Secession in Multinational Countries. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Bissenova, A. (2021) "Pole i zhizn': Razmyshleniia 'ukorenennogo' antropologa" [Field and Life: Reflections of an "Embedded" Anthropologist]. Sotsiologiia vlasti 33 (3): 131–148. https://doi.org/10.22394/2074-0492-2021-3-131-148

Budraitskis, I. (2023) "What Kind of Decolonization Do We Need?". Russia.Post. https://russiapost.info/politics/decolonization

Caspian Policy Center. (2024) "Central Asia in Focus: Central Asians Targeted in Russia". https://www.caspianpolicy.org/research/central-asia/central-asia-in-focus-central-asians-targeted-in-russia

Hagendoorn, L., Poppe, E. and Minescu, A. (2008) "Support for Separatism in Ethnic Republics of the Russian Federation". Europe–Asia Studies 60 (3): 353–373.

Idel.Realii / Radio Svoboda (2026) "Voina protiv Ukrainy: v Povolzh’e pogib kazhdyi 150-i trudosposobnyi muzhchina" [The War against Ukraine: One in 150 Working-Age Men in the Volga Region Has Died]. https://www.svoboda.org/a/33640567.html

Mediazona and BBC Russian Service (2026) Russian Losses in the War against Ukraine: Names of the Dead. Ongoing open-source database. https://zona.media/casualties. (accessed 9 September 2026)

Morris, J. (2023) "Decolonize This: Freeing Russia from the Washington Foreign Policy Blob". Postsocialism, 25 April. https://postsocialism.org/2023/04/25/decolonize-this-freeing-russia-from-the-washington-foreign-policy-blob/

Whyte, K.P. (2018) "White Allies, Let’s Be Honest About Decolonization". YES! Magazine, 3 April. https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/decolonize/2018/04/03/white-allies-lets-be-honest-about-decolonization