section_path: Foreign policy/Post-Soviet states
section_name: Post-Soviet states
paragraph_text: Post-Soviet states
  
  Under Putin, the Kremlin has consistently stated that Russia has a sphere of influence and "privileged interests" over other Post-Soviet states, which are referred to as the "near abroad" in Russia. It has also been stated that the post-Soviet states are strategically vital to Russian interests. Some Russia experts have compared this concept to the Monroe Doctrine.
  
  A series of so-called colour revolutions in the post-Soviet states, namely the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004 and the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005, led to frictions in the relations of those countries with Russia. In December 2004, Putin criticized the Rose and Orange revolutions, saying: "If you have permanent revolutions you risk plunging the post-Soviet space into endless conflict".
  
  Putin allegedly declared at a NATO-Russia summit in 2008 that if Ukraine joined NATO Russia could contend to annex the Ukrainian East and Crimea. At the summit, he told U.S. president George W. Bush that "Ukraine is not even a state!", while the following year Putin referred to Ukraine as " Little Russia ". Following the Revolution of Dignity in March 2014, the Russian Federation annexed Crimea. According to Putin, this was done because " Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia".
  
  After the Russian annexation of Crimea, he said that Ukraine includes "regions of Russia's historic south" and "was created on a whim by the Bolsheviks ". He went on to declare that the February 2014 ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych had been orchestrated by the West as an attempt to weaken Russia. "Our Western partners have crossed a line. They behaved rudely, irresponsibly and unprofessionally", he said, adding that the people who had come to power in Ukraine were "nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites ".
  
  In a July 2014 speech during a Russian-supported armed insurgency in Eastern Ukraine, Putin stated he would use Russia's "entire arsenal of available means" up to "operations under international humanitarian law and the right of self-defence" to protect Russian speakers outside Russia. With the attainment of autocephaly by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in December 2018 and subsequent schism of the Russian Orthodox Church from Constantinople, a number of experts came to the conclusion that Putin's policy of forceful engagement in post-Soviet republics significantly backfired on him, leading to a situation where he "annexed Crimea, but lost Ukraine", and provoked a much more cautious approach to Russia among other post-Soviet countries.
  
  In late August 2014, Putin stated: "People who have their own views on history and the history of our country may argue with me, but it seems to me that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples are practically one people". After making a similar statement, in late December 2015 he stated: "the Ukrainian culture, as well as Ukrainian literature, surely has a source of its own". In July 2021, he published a lengthy article On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians revisiting these themes, and saying the formation of a Ukrainian state hostile to Moscow was "comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us" —it was made mandatory reading for military-political training in the Russian Armed Forces.
  
  In August 2008, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to restore control over the breakaway South Ossetia. However, the Georgian military was soon defeated in the resulting 2008 South Ossetia War after regular Russian forces entered South Ossetia and then other parts of Georgia, then also opened a second front in the other Georgian breakaway province of Abkhazia with Abkhazian forces.
  
  Despite existing or past tensions between Russia and most of the post-Soviet states, Putin has followed the policy of Eurasian integration. Putin endorsed the idea of a Eurasian Union in 2011; the concept was proposed by the president of Kazakhstan in 1994. On 18 November 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement setting a target of establishing the Eurasian Union by 2015. The Eurasian Union was established on 1 January 2015.
  
  Under Putin, Russia's relations have improved significantly with Uzbekistan, the second largest post-Soviet republic after Ukraine. This was demonstrated in Putin's visit to Tashkent in May 2000, after lukewarm relations under Yeltsin and Islam Karimov who had long distanced itself from Moscow. In another meeting in 2014, Russia agreed to write off Uzbek debt. A theme of a greater Soviet region, including the former USSR and many of its neighbors or imperial-era states—rather than just post-Soviet Russia—has been consistent in Putin's May Day speeches.
  
  On 22 December 2022, Putin addressed the Security Council in a speech where he did not use the term "Special Military Operation" but instead called the fighting in Ukraine a "war". Anti-Putin activists have called for Putin to be prosecuted for breaking a law passed to stop people calling the Special Military Operation a war. This law carries a penalty of up to 15 years in jail. On 25 December, he openly declared in a TV interview that the goal of the invasion is "to unite the Russian people".
  
  On 14 December 2023, President Putin held a press conference where he indicated that Russian would only negotiate with Ukraine "when we achieve our objectives". He stated that another mobilization wasn't required as "617,000" Russian soldiers were fighting in Ukraine.
  
  During the 2024 Year-End Review, President Putin was asked if there were regrets from the "Special Military Operation". President Putin said that he regretted not launching it at the same time as the annexation of Crimea and with more "preparation". Saying "This decision, which was made at the beginning of 2022, should have been made earlier. That's the first thing. Secondly, we should have started preparing, including for the SMO. The events in Crimea were spontaneous. The events of 2022 also began without preparation. But why did we start? Because it was impossible to stand still and endure any longer".