History History

At the beginning of its history, the land of the future Russia was an immense and monotonous plain with low relief. Nomadic peoples could easily travel across it: Cimmerians were present in the 10th century BC, then the Scythians from the 7th century to the 2nd century and finally the Sarmatians who arrived in the 2nd century BC and were followed by other tribes: the Huns, Bulgarians, Khazars, Goths, Visigoths and Vandals. But these are only scattered peoples, far from constituting a true state. We have to wait for the Slavs and then the Varègues, who will give the first impetus to the constitution of the future Russia.

The true ancestors of the Russians are the Slavs. This people, originally from the north-eastern Carpathians, has scattered over the centuries, adopting different characters depending on where they settled. Some of them settled on what would become Russian land between the 6th and 9th centuries AD. To drive out the Khazars and defend themselves, the Slavs invited the Varègues (a neighbouring Scandinavian tribe) to govern them. The Varegues in this land are called Rus, a word derived from the Finnish Ruotsi, which means Roslagen, a region in southern Sweden where they lived. They are the ones who will give a first dynamic in the constitution of a state and the Slavic tribes are unified for the first time in 860 under the aegis of a Vareg prince, Rurik, originally from Denmark.

The seat of the first Rurikid dynasty is in Kiev, so the first state is called the Kiev Rus'. It grew in size with the conquests until it gradually dominated a large part of the Slavs. The Rus' institutionally abandoned Slavic paganism in 990 when it converted to the Eastern Christianity of Byzantium, with which it established commercial contacts. The late conversion of Russia is fundamental for the continuation of its history: by becoming Christian, it integrates Europe. Moreover, it received its art, architecture and icons from Byzantium. Thanks to writing, a literature is born. Finally, this conversion completes the unification of the Rus', after the first impulse given by the Varègues: it allows the Eastern Slavs to be unified within the same faith. It thus gives coherence to the multi-ethnic empire that the Varègue State had been until then: the Slavic liturgy will become the basis of the national cultural identity.

The Kiev region, the backbone of a commercial circuit, gradually fell into disuse as trade in the Mediterranean flourished again in the 12th century. Moscow gradually became Russia's new centre of gravity, at the expense of Kiev, which was abandoned. This shift in the centre of Russia led to the creation of three great spaces whose borders would continue to change over the centuries: the Ukraine (literally "the steps"), Belarus ("White Russia") and Greater Russia. But fragmented, the territory weakened in the face of the invaders.

Asia is undergoing a great upheaval: Genghis Khan unifies the Mongolian tribes and conquers China in less than ten years. His descendants sacked Moscow and seized Vladimir, Souzdal and Kiev in 1240, the time from which we date in Russia the beginning of the Tatar-Mongolian domination which will then extend to Central Europe. The Tatar domination is mainly materialized by taxes to be paid. This period saw the affirmation of Moscow, whose princes succeeded in obtaining from the khans of the Golden Horde the mission of collecting taxes. Moscow was also given the task of fighting against the Tatars' enemy cities. This gradually increases its political base. In 1380, the Grand Prince Dmitri of Moscow defeated the Tatars in Kulikovo and the decline of the Tatar Empire began. Since the Tatars, who had converted to Islam at the beginning of the 14th century, did not interfere in religion at all, Orthodoxy became a very great factor of unity for the population and a sign of the foundation of the nation. The Orthodox Church is also one of the only ways to keep in touch with Constantinople and the Mediterranean. Moreover, the 250 years of yoke completely cut Russia off from Europe, which was then in the midst of the Renaissance. For some, this period explains Russia's lagging behind Europe and the constant need for leaders to try to catch up. Russia's destiny seems to be sealed: cut off from the West, its history is destined to be different, neither European nor Asian.

In 1480, Ivan III was the first prince to refuse all allegiance to the Golden Horde. He definitively freed Russia from the Mongol yoke and consolidated Moscovia. Moscow became the sole heiress of the Rus' of Kiev and Ivan III granted himself the title of Caesar, which, through an adaptation to the Russian language, gives tsar. As the empire of Rome and that of Constantinople had fallen, he declared Moscow "Third Rome", that is to say, the bearer of Christian values. His son Ivan IV passed to posterity under the name of Ivan the Terrible. Marked at a very young age by the assassination of his mother by the boyars (aristocrats), he kept a fierce hatred against them and, later, accused them of having organized the murder of his wife. It is then the beginning of a reign of terror that lasts until his death and whose armed arm is the opritchnina, a new secret police force, used to impose its repressive measures. Moreover, Ivan the Terrible reforms the agrarian code, attaching peasants to their land and thus sets in motion the beginning of what will be a terrible scourge for Russia: serfdom. On pain of death, no peasant must flee. But many went north where, with fleeing slaves and adventurers, they would later constitute what were called the Cossacks. It was the conquests of Ivan the Terrible that paved the way for the establishment of a true empire. First he attacked the rest of the Mongolian empire. In 1552, he conquered the khanate of Kazan and then Astrakhan in 1556 and became the master of the entire Volga. Ivan laid the foundations of the empire. But after him, the troubles began.

When Ivan IV's son died in 1598, the Riurikid dynasty died out. His brother-in-law Boris Godunov succeeded him. Despite a brilliant start to his reign, which opened the country to foreign countries, Boris soon faced resistance from the famous boyars. Then begins what has been called "the time of unrest" (1604-1613): the pretenders to the throne succeed one another, and the identity of Ivan the Terrible's son is usurped twice as the boyars and neighbouring Poles fight over the new empire. An alliance between the two contenders is defeated, then in 1613 a popular assembly chooses for Tsar Michel Romanov, the first of the dynasty.

The two most outstanding czars of the Romanov dynasty are undoubtedly Peter the Great, who reigns from 1682 to 1725, and Catherine II, who reigns from 1762 to 1796. Aware that Russia was lagging behind the rest of Europe, they both worked for an opening up of Russia to the West, seeing the European model as the best way to make Russia a progressive nation

Peter the Great set himself the mission of wrenching Russia out of the Middle Ages and turning it towards the lights of Europe. From a trip to Europe, he comes back with a main idea in mind, that of building a modern navy, which requires a piece of the Baltic. After having conquered it following a war against Sweden, he undertakes to build a port on the Gulf of Finland, at the mouth of the Neva River, in order to open "a window on Europe". It was there that in 1703 he built the city of Saint Petersburg, which became the capital in 1712, and endowed it with all the attributes of a European city: palaces, Western-style ministries, museums, a university and a library. Peter I remains the symbol of the tsar who sought in the Western model the last resort to advance Russia willingly or unwillingly, with the aim of making his country the first European power. His successor leaders will remain faithful to this policy. The court will continue to westernize, to the point of being cut off from the peasant mass. It is at this time that the term Russia supersedes that of Moscovia.

Catherine II known as the Great came from the small German aristocracy and arrived in Russia at the age of fifteen. Married to the grandson of Peter the Great, she removed him from the throne and set about building an empire which, by its size, was to surpass the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Aware as Peter was of his country's backwardness, Catherine was determined to transform it. So she decided to open it to the world of ideas that flourished in the West at that time: the philosophy of the Enlightenment. She corresponds with Voltaire and brings Diderot to her court. Thus the French influence spreads with its procession of progressive ideas: her reign is marked by a cultural bubbling. But the problematic issue of serfdom continues to grow, provoking one of the most famous peasant revolts in history: the revolt of Pugachev, which saw the unification of more than a million peasants before being severely repressed by the armies of power. Pugachev was eventually betrayed and delivered by his supporters and beheaded in Moscow in 1775. Catherine II continues to expand her empire. She seized Lithuania, Belarus, Western Ukraine and shared Poland with Frederick of Prussia, but her most important conquest was the Crimea. But at the end of her reign, frightened by the French Revolution, Catherine suddenly closes her country to new ideas.

The 19th century saw the birth in Russia of an enlightened population and the first intelligentsia, inspired by ideas from Europe. After the philosophy of the Enlightenment, Russian intellectuals became interested in socialism. It is also in the 19th century that, at the price of bloody conflicts, the Tsarist Empire will definitively enslave the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The reign of Alexander I (1801-1825) was almost entirely occupied by Napoleon's invasion. Despite the peace concluded with the French in Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon invaded Russia and was in Moscow in 1812. In a burst of patriotic fervour, its inhabitants preferred to set fire to their city rather than surrender it to the enemy. Napoleon's retreat was immediate and Russian troops even went so far as to "accompany" him to Paris in 1814. The European campaigns of the young officers breathed a new spirit into the Russian aristocracy: they created circles of thought and reflected on the country's backwardness. It was the first attempt in Russia to create free thought and political reflection. After the sudden death of Alexander in 1825, these societies took advantage of the short interregnum to try to seize power in the form of an insurrection, known as the revolt of the decabrists. All the conspirators were arrested, the leaders were executed and the others deported to Siberia. For the first time, the participants do not want to change the ruler, but the regime, by giving it a constitution.

Alexander's successor, Nicholas I, remained marked throughout his reign (1825-1855) by the Decembrists' revolt of 1825 and, by proclaiming himself the "gendarme of Europe", never ceased to fight against all revolutionary ideas. The reign of Alexander II (1855-1881) marked the end of an era in Russia. He decided to abolish serfdom in 1861, but this did not have the desired effect. Alexander II carries out many liberal reforms, he creates hospitals and primary schools. Censorship is less severe and opinion debates are possible. At the same time, the young idealists of the previous period are replaced by a more committed youth that enters in effervescence in the universities and completely radicalizes its revolt against autocracy. Many students go to England, Switzerland and France, where they embrace Marxism and legitimize the politically motivated attack: Alexander II is assassinated by a revolutionary terrorist group in 1881. After him came the time of reaction. Fighting against any revolutionary idea, Alexander III reinforces censorship. Above all, he understood Russia's backwardness in relation to Europe and decided to bring the country into the industrial era.

The reign of Nicholas II (1894-1917) marked the end of the Tsarist Empire. In 1905, the country loses a war against Japan and faces several popular uprisings. In January, a workers' demonstration is suppressed in blood and some educated elites, peasants and workers join forces to demand more political freedoms and measures of social and economic justice. This "1905 Revolution" marks, officially at least, the end of autocracy. A new body, the Duma, a legislative assembly representing the people, was set up, which in reality was instrumentalized to become the guardian of reaction. The power antagonizes the population and the tsar, who is completely disconnected from the situation, prefers to rely on his mystical minister Rasputin (see the dossier on Nicholas II, the last tsar). The Russians are exasperated: the tsar, who since Ivan the Terrible enjoyed a paternal face, loses all his attributes. Only one event is missing for the revolutionary movement to explode. It will be the war of 1914. Drawn into this fight to support Serbia, a sister country, against Austria, Russia is soon confronted with its structural weaknesses: supplies are made very difficult because of transport problems. As the population of the cities was no longer supplied, it decided to rise up in St. Petersburg in February 1917 to obtain bread. The army sided with them. Faced with this irreversible situation, the Duma formed a provisional government and on 15 March, the tsar abdicated in favour of his brother Michel, who himself renounced the throne.

From February 1917, a provisional government is set up which promotes a bourgeois republic. The war, the decisive element that provoked the February Revolution, continues and the discontent of the people increases. Parallel to this official government, another power is organized: that of the Soviets. These groupings of soldiers and workers spread to different cities in the country following the Petrograd model. Thus chaos continues to reign in the country while food supplies are still lacking. And the legitimacy of the provisional government is diminishing day by day.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin returns from exile in Switzerland and takes the lead in the Bolshevik movement. Also, while the provisional government galvanizes the discontent, Lenin launches in April 1917 his famous April theses: it is necessary to stop the war which is no longer bearable for the population, to share the land with the peasants as they have long wished and above all, to implement immediately the socialist revolution by passing to a republic of the Soviets which gives power to the workers. On 6 November, detachments of workers and soldiers under Trotsky's command enter the seat of the provisional government, the Winter Palace in Petrograd, and the coup d'état goes down in history as the "October Revolution".

The warring Russians greeted the arrival of the Bolsheviks in power with passivity and indifference. But soon opponents of all kinds woke up and tried to organize themselves. They start a civil war. The whites (monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks) received the support of foreign armies. Trotsky organizes a Red Army. In order to confront his internal enemies, the leaders disengage from the war by signing the Brest-Litovsk peace and accepting Germany's enormous demands: they lose the Baltic countries and Poland.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire extended from Warsaw to the Pacific Ocean, and from the Baltic Sea to the Transcaucasus and Central Asia. From 1917, it began to break up: non-Russian peoples asserted their sovereignty and often fought alongside whites in civil war. To re-establish (by force) unity, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is created in 1922. The imperial territory was thus retained, but with the promotion of a decolonial and emancipation ideology through communism

While the primary idea of the Bolsheviks was to export the revolution, they had to face this impossibility and decided to concentrate on building socialism in one country. In 1921, the country comes out of six years of war completely ruined, so Lenin, quite pragmatic, decides to make a pause in the establishment of socialism. He created the NEP, a new common economic policy, in order to allow the country to rebuild itself economically. He allows the development of a private sector in small-scale industry and retail trade. Economically, it is a great success, the country is recovering.

Lenin died prematurely in 1924. A power struggle begins between Trotsky and Stalin, which the latter wins. He decided to set the country on the path of forced industrialization, of which forced collectivization and heavy industry were the watchwords. It is the time of planning, the guiding principle of Stalin's policy, which will concern both economic returns and, for example, the literacy of the population. But life remains difficult: among other things, the population is cruelly lacking in consumer goods. To maintain his authority, Stalin relied on three things: terror, the cult of personality and propaganda. From 1934 onwards, the NKVD (then KGB) controlled the population. In the same year, the purges begin with the elimination of the people from the Party. Millions of Russians are sent to concentration camps: the gulags, many of whom will not return.

On the outside, the USSR joined the concert of nations in 1924 when it was admitted to the League of Nations. At first, it drew closer to the Western democracies. But following the Munich Agreements, Stalin decided to ally himself with Hitler. In March 1939, the Soviet-German pact was signed, under which the USSR annexed Eastern Poland, Karelia, the Baltic States, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from September 1939 to March 1940. But on June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded an USSR ill-prepared for war. The Nazi army advances quickly to the outskirts of Moscow, which resists a long siege. Stalin managed to mobilize the population in the service of the "Great Patriotic War" (the term used by the Soviet Union to designate its conflict with Nazi Hitler) and concluded an agreement with Great Britain. At the beginning of 1943, the Red Army regained ground and in the autumn of 1944 entered Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, participated in the liberation of Yugoslavia, advanced into Poland at the beginning of 1945 and, in accordance with the Yalta agreements, occupied East Germany. Also according to these same agreements, it declares war on Japan, and obtains, at the time of the capitulation of Japan, the Sakhalin Island and the Kuril Archipelago

At the end of the war, the USSR lost 20 million men. It quickly regains its industrial potential thanks to the 4th five-year plan, but its agricultural production stagnates due to the resistance of the farmers. The 5th Five-Year Plan still gives priority to heavy industry rather than consumer goods. Some nationalities, accused of having collaborated with the enemy, are deported: Ingush, Chechens and Crimean Tatars are deported as early as 1943 and their autonomous republics are suppressed. Police repression is omnipresent, and Stalin's adulation borders on the absurd. The "Little Father of Peoples" died on March 5, 1953. In the meantime, the "Cold War" is born, from an inability of the Allies to get along. The USSR imposes its authority on the territories liberated by the Red Army, refuses the proposed American aid of the Marshall Plan and imposes a blockade on Berlin in 1948. The "Iron Curtain" fell on Europe and for 40 years separated the people's democracies in the East from the liberal democracies in the West.

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev is placed at the head of the Party secretariat. The first two years of this new leadership were characterized by a certain thaw. During the XXth congress of 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes, terror and the cult of personality, which provoked amazement in the socialist camp. It is the destalinization: one attends the rehabilitation of the victims of the purges and most of the nationalities deported to Siberia. Khrushchev also tries to change the direction of the economy: he gives priority to consumer goods and launches a building construction programme, with the khrushchevki, these symbolic blocks of buildings. It was also a time of scientific success: development of the H-bomb in 1953, Gagarin in space in 1961. On October 4, 1957, the USSR won a symbolic victory over the United States by launching the first Sputnik I satellite.
From an international point of view, détente began with the end of the Korean War in 1953. Externally, the USSR supported the recently decolonized Third World countries, but its relations with China deteriorated until the public break-up of 1961. Relations with the West and especially with the United States cooled considerably and the crisis reached its climax with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and Soviet missiles from Cuba. The failure of this offensive policy led Khrushchev to seek a lasting agreement with the United States: the red telephone was installed in 1963. But the economic and agricultural sector was in difficulty. Following several blunders, Khrushchev, disavowed, had to resign in 1964.

Brezhnev succeeds him and intends to pursue a more realistic policy and return to Leninist orthodoxy. Steps are being taken to improve agriculture and yields and to give more autonomy to industrial enterprises. Censorship is strengthened and intellectuals find it difficult to accept it after a tolerant Khrushchev. Dissidents are expressing their criticism abroad, notably Sakharov (Nobel Peace Prize in 1975). Brezhnev dies in 1982. He succeeded him at the head of the Andropov party and then Chernenko. The latter died in 1985. Outside, the USSR strengthens the Warsaw Pact. It also strengthens its ties with Cuba, which becomes a real satellite, but also with Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria... After the repression of the Prague Spring in 1968, it intervenes indirectly in Vietnam and Cambodia to install communist regimes and directly in Afghanistan in 1979 to support a regime devoted to its devotion. 100,000 Russian soldiers face strong local resistance and the 10 years of "Afghan quagmire" will traumatize several generations. But while pursuing this policy of firmness within the socialist camp, it improves its relations with the West by signing all the disarmament treaties.

In 1985, the economy was paralysed, the country was suffering from alcoholism and a parallel economy was being created to provide a living. Internationally, the arms race with the United States continues while the USSR is no longer able to do so. The population is less and less accepting of this state of affairs. Gorbachev comes to power in 1985 and will try a kind of revolution: changing the way it works while keeping the same communist system. He launched perestroika, a word meaning "restructuring". This is the economic aspect of the reforms he undertakes. He relaxes the directives and creates an embryo of privatization. The ideological part of his reforms is glasnost, which means "transparency": one can say publicly everything that was kept quiet under ideological pressure. Dissidents like Andrei Sakharov are freed, public debates take place in the Supreme Soviet. Democratisation allows the expression of democratic, ecological, national, religious or even independence aspirations in the Baltic States and the Caucasus. As the economic situation does not improve, discontent among the population increases. And since the population also enjoys a new freedom of speech, it can express this discontent. The abolition of press censorship, for example, has made it possible for the population to learn about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.

Gradually, Gorbachev was caught between two forms of opposition: on the one hand the communist conservatives and on the other the liberals. In 1990, after a constitutional reform, Gorbachev became the first president of the USSR, but Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the RSFSR, so the two opponents had to cohabit. In August 1991, the Communists take advantage of the fact that Gorbachev is on holiday to attempt a putsch against him. The liberal Boris Yeltsin then took over the leadership of the opposition. He called for resistance and succeeded in breaking the putsch; part of the forces supported him. Above all, Yeltsin succeeds in getting the media on his side. He emerges as the great hero of these days, while Gorbachev is completely discredited and no longer has his place at the head of a country that no longer wants to exist. Georgia and the Baltic States, then Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and finally Russia obtain their independence. On 21 December 1991, the Alma-Ata agreements marked the effective end of the USSR and laid the foundations for the CIS. Gorbachev, who had become president of a defunct union, resigned on 25 December and Moscow buried the Soviet Union.

In 1992, as in 1917, there is a power vacuum and a history that needs to be reinvented. The introduction of Prime Minister Egor Gaïdar's "shock therapy" on January 2, 1992, established free prices and provoked distress situations which, for the vast majority of the population, would take root throughout the decade. Parliament, the majority of whose members were former executives of the regime, fiercely opposed all these changes. In September 1993, a constitutional crisis erupted which led to the deployment of tanks and the burning of the "White House", the seat of Congress. In December, Boris Yeltsin had a new constitution voted. At the end of 1994, war broke out in Chechnya, a republic in southern Russia which had declared independence in 1991, wishing to emancipate itself from Russian tutelage to become part, like Ukraine or Kazakhstan, of a Soviet Union with only three months to live. This is the beginning of a cycle of violence and terror that will last 15 years and will radically change the future of Russia. In July 1996, Boris Yeltsin managed to get himself re-elected and then put an end to what would be the first Chechen war by signing a peace agreement with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. The end of Boris Yeltsin's presidency is marked by great instability. It is a new "Time of Trouble": relations between the Kremlin and the Duma are deteriorating to the utmost and the Prime Ministers are waltzing about. With the approach of the presidential elections of 2000, Yeltsin takes out of his hat a new Prime Minister totally unknown to the general public, Vladimir Putin. On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin resigned on the eve of the presidential elections and appointed Putin as the runner-up. Putin was elected President of Russia on 26 March 2000 in the first round with 52% of the votes. This triumphant election was a clear break with the Yeltsin era.

When Putin came to power in 2000, he was a man virtually unknown in Russia. He faces a terrible challenge given the situation left by his predecessor: the country is ruined because of the economic crisis, the great expectations of 1991 do not seem to have been fulfilled, because privatisations have led to many inequalities and Boris Yeltsin has not succeeded in restoring the Russians' national pride. So the great challenge of Putin's first term in office was to meet all these challenges. As soon as he became Prime Minister in 1999, he triggered the second Chechen war. Much more violent than the first war, the conflict had a lasting impact: local people and young Russian conscripts were massacred, and Chechen refugees fled en masse. At the base of independence, the conflict is phagocytised by foreign elements and confessionalism, becoming a holy war against Russia

His second struggle was to bring the oligarchs to heel, symbolic of his desire to restore order in the management of privatisations. In 2000, he forced the tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Goussinski into exile, and in 2003 the boss of the Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was imprisoned for 10 years. By aligning himself in September 2001 with the United States in his desire to fight terrorism, he gave Russia back an international role. Finally, thanks in part to the oil windfall, the economic situation is picking up: unemployment and poverty are decreasing. The end of the crisis has been quicker and more sustained than most observers thought possible. As a result, Putin's authoritarian "power vertical" praxis has been a resounding success. Russians want to see their country regain the signs of power and Putin gives them the image of the strong power to which they aspire. We find this vertical in the settlement of the Chechen conflict, when in 2003, after the bulk of the rebellion had been put down, a loyalist president was chosen, charged with implementing the policy of "Chechenisation" decided by Vladimir Putin.

Putin was therefore triumphantly re-elected in March 2004 with 70% of the votes. But uncertainties remain. In 2004, the attack in Beslan by Chechen rebels, without the extent of Russian involvement being known, left 334 people dead on the first day of the new school year at a primary school in North Ossetia. Putin's popularity took a big blow in 2005, when his decision to abolish social benefits resulting from communism (free services - electricity, heating, housing... - for the most disadvantaged classes) provoked mass demonstrations. In the immediate vicinity of Russia, the former communist and pro-Russian elites are being ousted. The Rose Revolution in Georgia in the autumn of 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in the winter of 2004 and the White Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in March 2005 contribute to the image of a Russia that is losing control of its former republics, which prefer to turn to the West and receive aid from the United States.

The desire for emancipation of the countries of the former USSR has only intensified, thus stimulating Vladimir Putin's geopolitical appetite. Due to the impossibility of serving more than two terms in a row, it is Dimitri Medvedev who replaces him in the presidency between 2008 and 2012, when Putin becomes Prime Minister. This in no way prevented the outbreak in August of the Russian-Georgian war, in which the Russians intervened in support of the South Ossetians on the verge of seceding. The war lasted five days and marked the beginning of a new era of confrontation between Russia and the West (in particular NATO).

In 2014, the confrontation intensifies as Ukraine oust pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich and demonstrates in Kiev's Maidan Square in support of the association agreement that the country was to sign with the EU. Following an illegal referendum, Russia annexes (or "reclaims", according to rhetoric) the Crimean peninsula, which had been transferred to Ukraine by Khrushchev in 1954. The mining regions of eastern Ukraine join the irredentist movement and take up arms to preserve their historical cultural proximity to Russia. Officially, Russian troops have never crossed the Ukrainian border, but unofficially, they support the separatist forces militarily and humanely in this conflict which has claimed more than 13 000 lives. While the situation, which has been going on since 2015, seems to be getting bogged down, the arrival of former actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy as President of Ukraine in 2019 after the much criticised mandate of the oligarch Petro Poroshenko augurs well for a possible resumption of negotiations.

Russia has also sought to regain its dominant place in the concert of nations by moving beyond its post-Soviet pre-square. Already under economic sanctions because of the annexation of the Crimea, Russia officially enters the Syrian conflict in September 2015, providing military support to its old ally Bashar al-Assad. Instead of directly bombing the Islamic State Organization, which was then at the height of its activity, Russia first attacked the Syrian rebels who were the first to revolt against the tyrannical yoke of al-Assad. In doing so, the country definitively alienated the "liberal" Western governments, while gaining a certain influence with the sovereignists. But above all, it imposes itself as an intermediary without whom the end of the conflict will not be possible.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the numerous scandals which, since 2016, have questioned Russia's role in the American presidential elections and then a possible collusion with the new President Donald Trump show that the country has become a key player on the international scene. However, the return in force of a powerful and proud Russia on the diplomatic scene no longer manages to make the Russians forget that the internal situation of the country is gradually deteriorating

While the devaluation of the rouble triggered in 2014 does not seem to be reversed durably, Russia's economic health is deteriorating and the gap is widening between the working classes and the very rich, of whom there are many. On the political side, the great wave of demonstrations in 2011 against (among other things) Vladimir Putin's candidacy for a third term of office only results in increased repression against opponents. A few months later, the "punk prayer" of the anti-Putin feminist group Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow resulted in heavy prison sentences for members. Their arrest highlights the role played by the Orthodox Church and its Patriarch Kirill II in the country's internal affairs. And the social climate is worsening, with the passing of sometimes very conservative laws: already, in 2013, the banning of "homosexual propaganda" and then, in 2017, the decriminalisation of domestic violence. Furthermore, in 2017, the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta reveals that the Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov is carrying out mass massacres of LGBTQ people in his Republic. The scandal handicaps Russia internationally. And this without any retaliatory measures being taken by the federal executive against Kadyrov, because the leaden blanket he is putting over the former secessionist republic is too useful for maintaining the territorial integrity of the country

In 2010, it was revealed that there were "state" doping practices that had favoured Russian athletes at the Olympic Games that Russia had organised, not without difficulty, in Sochi in 2014. The case goes to the heart of the country, which had banked on its sporting performances to restore its image after the organisation of the Games was marred by numerous scandals and partial boycotts. Still in the sports soft power, the smooth running of the 2018 World Cup hosted by several Russian cities could have been an opportunity for Putin to start his fourth term in office on a new positive note. But for the moment, after a series of demonstrations against a pension reform in 2018 and for the holding of democratic local elections in 2019 (see the dossier The country today), the time seems to be more about refusing to accept the established order.