Russia’s “Humanitarian” Tool For Foreign Policy, Extraterritorial Governance, And Military Intervention

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is a violation of fundamental principles of international law, including the prohibition of the use of force, the territorial integrity of states, and the principle of non-intervention. Putin’s alleged arguments to conduct a “special military operation” to “demilitarise and denazify” Ukraine revolve around protecting the people of the Donbas, including citizens of the Russian Federation, “facing humiliation and genocide.” The genocide leitmotiv is not new, as it was already put forward to justify the Russian military intervention in Georgia in 2008. Allison, Roy. ‘The Russian Case for Military Intervention in Georgia: International Law, Norms and Political Calculation’. European Security 18, no. 2 (June 2009): 173–200. In the framework of protecting Russian compatriots abroad, one of the tools Russia used to justify its political and military engagement in the post-Soviet space has been “passportization.” Passportization is a fast-track extraterritorial naturalization en masse of citizens residing in contested territories of a third country. Burkhardt, Fabian. ‘Russia’s “Passportisation” of the Donbas: The Mass Naturalisation of Ukrainians Is More than a Foreign Policy Tool’. German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP Comment 2020/C 41. This policy effectively created Russian citizens in the contested territories of neighbouring states, like in Georgia and Ukraine, in the context of protracted conflicts of secession. In Ukraine, Russia initially justified this policy on humanitarian grounds and as a temporary measure until the resolution of the conflict in Donbas.