A lot of people have speculated on the potential breakup of the Russian Federation due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine if things go poorly enough for Russia. I went into a deep dive of Russian ethnic groups and ended up creating this map. The first thing to note is that not a single non-republic federal entity has an ethnic makeup that contains at least a major ethnic minority except Chukotka Okrug in the far northeast. Yes, even the other three autonomous okrugs that supposedly have ethnic minority characters to them have a fewer than 1:2 ratio of that ethnic minority to ethnic Russians, in fact usually it was worse than 1:4 ratios. Chukotka Okrug notwithstanding, within the republics there are even several with their dedicated ethnicity being a small minority. In the map, light red refers to those republics, light blue refer to the republics where the dedicated ethnicity is a major component of the population but Russians still make up a majority or plurality, and only the dark blue republics contain populations where the dedicated ethnicity make up a majority or plurality. I think the most surprising finding was that the Republic of Bashkortostan did not make it to dark blue. If you want to see where potential breakaway regions are, I would say obviously the North Caucasus area is the most probable. The border regions near Mongolia could easily elevate relations with China. The Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is an interesting case where their remoteness and strong national identity might make it plausible but they may also be easily crushed. Lastly, the Volga region is likely unable to make any moves due to their landlocked nature within Russia and no access to the outside world, not to mention their proximity to Moscow and the Russian heartland. Overall, a true balkanization of Russia seems unlikely. At most some border areas may try to break off.
neilinukraine on
Many regions now without men, literally.
Irejectmyhumanity16 on
Turkic people have majority in some of those areas. Russia and you count them seperately which is an old tactic of Russian Empire and then Soviets to divide them but their culture are similar and they act together.
Eminence_grizzly on
All Russian ethnicities are so assimilated that they are basically just Russians who might speak an additional language—they won’t be the ones to break up Russia.
Look at the generals, oligarchs, and regional elites—those are the people who can tear Russia apart when central authority weakens.
FlashyRespons on
Does anybody know how many of those “Russians” do in fact have a second identity, but prefer to say they are Russians due to political/social reasons? Like, speaking another language in the family? Is having the designation “russian” in your ID advantageous in your everyday life in Russia?
5 Comments
A lot of people have speculated on the potential breakup of the Russian Federation due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine if things go poorly enough for Russia. I went into a deep dive of Russian ethnic groups and ended up creating this map. The first thing to note is that not a single non-republic federal entity has an ethnic makeup that contains at least a major ethnic minority except Chukotka Okrug in the far northeast. Yes, even the other three autonomous okrugs that supposedly have ethnic minority characters to them have a fewer than 1:2 ratio of that ethnic minority to ethnic Russians, in fact usually it was worse than 1:4 ratios. Chukotka Okrug notwithstanding, within the republics there are even several with their dedicated ethnicity being a small minority. In the map, light red refers to those republics, light blue refer to the republics where the dedicated ethnicity is a major component of the population but Russians still make up a majority or plurality, and only the dark blue republics contain populations where the dedicated ethnicity make up a majority or plurality. I think the most surprising finding was that the Republic of Bashkortostan did not make it to dark blue. If you want to see where potential breakaway regions are, I would say obviously the North Caucasus area is the most probable. The border regions near Mongolia could easily elevate relations with China. The Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is an interesting case where their remoteness and strong national identity might make it plausible but they may also be easily crushed. Lastly, the Volga region is likely unable to make any moves due to their landlocked nature within Russia and no access to the outside world, not to mention their proximity to Moscow and the Russian heartland. Overall, a true balkanization of Russia seems unlikely. At most some border areas may try to break off.
Many regions now without men, literally.
Turkic people have majority in some of those areas. Russia and you count them seperately which is an old tactic of Russian Empire and then Soviets to divide them but their culture are similar and they act together.
All Russian ethnicities are so assimilated that they are basically just Russians who might speak an additional language—they won’t be the ones to break up Russia.
Look at the generals, oligarchs, and regional elites—those are the people who can tear Russia apart when central authority weakens.
Does anybody know how many of those “Russians” do in fact have a second identity, but prefer to say they are Russians due to political/social reasons? Like, speaking another language in the family? Is having the designation “russian” in your ID advantageous in your everyday life in Russia?