Politicization of Ethnic Identity: Western Technologies for Constructing Ethnonational Splits in Russia After the Start of the Special Military Operation

After the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, the collective West uses the politicization of ethnicity as one of the tools of competition with the Russian Federation. The research is based on an interdisciplinary methodology that includes geopolitical, civilizational, instrumentalist, and discursive approaches. The article analyzes the content of mass media and Telegram channels, the activities of organizations created and/or operating under the leadership of Western countries, which politicize and mobilize the ethnic identity of peoples living on the territory of the Russian Federation at the discursive and non-discursive levels. The authors conclude that these processes are implemented through the following political technologies: 1) positioning Russia as a “colonial empire†and an existential “enemy†of various ethnonational groups; 2) the imposition of ideas about alleged discrimination of various ethnic groups by the Russian Federation; 3) appeal to the negative aspects of the shared past of Russia and the peoples living on its territory; 4) the construction of national identity based on anti-Russian meanings; 5) the opposition of ethnic groups living in the subjects of the Russian Federation to state authorities in particular and Russia as a whole. The authors also conclude that the public rhetoric of the collective West in relation to interethnic processes in the Russian Federation is getting tougher every year and acquires a higher level of frankness and political realism: the theses about democracy and human rights violations are not the key ones, this role is assigned to the statements about the need to deprive Russia of its resources (territorial and hydrocarbon ones, nuclear weapons, etc.).