National Unity Day on 4 November 2026 – declared the Year of the Unity of the Peoples of Russia – unfolded like an accordion: at the beginning of November – and so it will be every year thereafter – the International Week ‘Peoples of Russia’ was held, organised by the apparatus of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and by Roskongress.
The programme included three days of round-table discussions on the theme of the ‘unique Russian model of civilisation’ and its promotion around the world, as well as a separate youth day, a film forum, the All-Russian Forum on National Unity and much more, eventually turning into a Week that lasts for months, and perhaps years.
Essentially, the international aspect of the Week does not apply solely to the ethnic peoples of Russia, but encompasses all countries that ‘share the corresponding spiritual and moral values’ of Russia. What is noteworthy is the participation in the sessions of troops from the International Movement of Russophiles (Mdr), which has long been exposed by The Insider for its links to Moscow’s Foreign Ministry, the security services and the notorious Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.
The Mdr fell under EU sanctions in December 2025, and investigative journalists had predicted that it would face “the same inglorious end as previous Kremlin puppet organisations”; yet the session “Russophilia as a Reflection of the Russian Historical and Civilisational Model” involved 11 representatives from Balkan countries, as well as countries in Africa, India, Italy and Romania.
Only one of the Week’s stated objectives was indirectly related to the peoples of Russia (with the exception of the Russians themselves): “To implement and enhance the effectiveness of national state policy”. The national policy of the Russian Federation comprises two aspects: the formation of a Russian civic nation, and support for the cultures of various peoples.
The latest versions of strategic documents on this subject demonstrate a reduction in the second aspect and an increase in the first, as well as a tendency to use the word and concept of russkij, ‘Russian’, where one should say rossijskij, the term denoting the ‘non-Russian Russians’ of the Federation. This ploy can also be observed on the website for the Year of Unity of the Peoples of Russia, where there is a section entitled ‘Values of the Year’, formulated in language that is often surprising: for example, ‘Unity concerns what we have in common, not what sets us apart’ or ‘Russia is a family of families’.
According to these formulations, Russians of all kinds and ethnicities are united by common values, history, culture and heroes, the chief value of which is a strong family (an ideal that is, in reality, highly elusive in Russia), because ‘our great power is formed from many families’. Obviously, ‘the Russian language and culture unite all the country’s inhabitants and form the basis of our identity’. The ‘unified cultural code’ is based on the legacy of Russian culture and absorbs the traditions of all the country’s peoples; thus an original Russian culture is born, which develops thanks to the Russian language as a means of inter-ethnic communication, making the Russian people ‘the core around which other ethnic groups have united, whilst preserving their own identity and culture’.
Thus, “athletes, scientists, warriors, cultural figures – everyone, regardless of nationality, glorifies Russia”, just as was the case in the good old days of the tsars and Soviet totalitarianism. The word russkij becomes an honorary title for everyone: Russian scientist, Russian champion, Russian hero. Indeed, “the common Russian civic identity is the awareness of oneself as part of a single political nation, despite ethnic and cultural diversity – an experience so unique that it has developed historically in our country, first as Russian citizenship, then as the Soviet community, and today as the Russian civic nation. To the whole world, we are all Russians’.
The same shift in terminology can be seen in the announcement for the International Week event entitled ‘The Russian Model: Culture of Diversity Management, Best Practices’, in which ‘traditional Russian values’ are highlighted first, followed by both terms being used as absolute synonyms: “How can the rossijskij (russkij) management model be made even more effective and efficient in today’s rapidly changing world?”, and at the end of the announcement, “Should the foundations of the russkij management model be taught at universities?”.
The unification of russkij is also evident in other objectives of the Week, including specifically “global support for the Russian language” to strengthen international humanitarian cooperation, including through multilateral links with Russian-speaking communities and fraternities abroad, and so on: “promotion of traditional values as the basis for the harmonious development of the individual and society” and “preservation of historical memory and service to the Motherland” .
The Week is described as “a key event for strengthening the unity of Russia’s multinational people and the development of international humanitarian cooperation”. The mantra of ‘strengthening unity’ permeates the entire programme, alongside other frequently repeated phrases such as ‘a unique model of Russian civilisation’, ‘a great sovereign state’ or the infamous ‘common cultural code’, whatever that may mean.
The fine declarations of support for the diversity of peoples and languages actually stand out against a backdrop of obsessive political and linguistic Russification, xenophobia and racism, the unchecked expansion of ultra-nationalist movements such as the ‘Russian Community’ and, of course, the military aggression of the ‘Russian world’ against Ukraine, a people considered more than ever to be russkij.
Another session is entitled ‘The International Decade of Indigenous Languages in Russia and Around the World’, raising questions that are far from trivial: ‘Can our country offer its own experience in combining the Russian language as a means of inter-ethnic communication with systematic support for the languages of the country’s peoples? Which interim results of the Decade’s implementation in Russia can be considered successful? Which models for language preservation in education have proven effective and become standard practice?’, hinting at the meagre results of this ‘decade of integration’, the most aggressive Russian initiative towards the whole world.
Yet in September, the provisional results of the Decade had been announced by the Scientific Centre for the Preservation, Revival and Documentation of Russian Languages at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Linguists have identified 155 languages spoken in Russia; 25 of these are not at risk of extinction, but 23 of them have their own ‘country of origin’, meaning they are the official languages of other countries (Armenian, Bulgarian, Tajik, etc.).
Therefore, if we subtract the ‘thriving’ languages from the total number, only two remain that are not at risk: the first is, of course, the Russian language, and the second is Russian Sign Language. The remaining languages of the peoples living in the Russian Federation are in a vulnerable position, including the ‘official’ languages of the republics and autonomous regions, which are, after all, spoken by millions of people.
The most vulnerable languages are those that linguists have classified as ‘dying’ – those of small indigenous peoples, which could only survive through decolonisation from Russia. It is no coincidence that the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights is regarded by the authorities in Moscow as an ‘extremist and terrorist’ activity; activists from national movements and indigenous communities are forced into exile, and the population of the traditional territories of indigenous peoples is being sent to all fronts of the war, so that soon there will be nothing left to revitalise: there will be no rossijskij mir, under the global spectre of the Russkij Mir.
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