Introduction
Contemporary Russian revisionism—manifested in military actions in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014, 2022)—has revived debates regarding Moscow's long-term geopolitical intentions. While these expansionist tendencies point toward an assertive re-establishment of regional dominance, conflating contemporary Russian revanchism with the reconstitution of the Soviet Union misinterprets the distinct ideological, geopolitical, and structural drivers of the current regime.
Ideological Divergence: Russkiy Mir versus Soviet Universalism
Contemporary Russian foreign policy fundamentally differs in its normative and ideological foundation from that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR):
- Civilisational State and Revanchism: While the USSR sought ideological legitimacy through Marxist-Leninist universalism and international proletarian solidarity, the current regime's posture is rooted in neo-Eurasianism, Tsarist imperial heritage, and the cultural doctrine of Russkiy Mir (Russian World). This civilisational construct conceives the Russian-speaking diaspora in the 'Near Abroad' as an organic part of the Russian geopolitical space.
- Denunciation of Bolshevik Legacies: In his 2022 pre-invasion address, Vladimir Putin explicitly denounced Vladimir Lenin's nationalities policy, blaming the Bolsheviks for artificially constructing modern Ukraine on historically Russian territories. Current expansionism reflects pre-Soviet imperial cartography rather than a desire to resurrect socialist institutional models.
Systemic Scope and Geopolitical Ambitions
The operational and geographical horizons of modern Russian foreign policy are regionally contained compared to the systemic reach of the Soviet superpower:
- Regional Sphere of Influence: Soviet foreign policy operated on a global binary axis, seeking worldwide communist hegemony and confronting the West across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In contrast, modern Russian expansionism seeks regional hegemony in the post-Soviet Eurasian space and a recognized veto power within an emerging multipolar world order.
- Mechanisms of Control: Rather than pursuing the direct territorial re-annexation of all fifteen former Soviet republics, Moscow secures regional primacy through asymmetric instruments. These include multilateral institutions such as the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), alongside frozen conflicts in Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia.
Theoretical Perspectives: Defensive Realism vs. Imperial Restoration
International Relations theory provides nuanced lenses to interpret current Russian expansionism:
- Structural and Defensive Realism: As argued by John Mearsheimer, Moscow's coercive actions reflect great-power balancing against NATO's eastward expansion and the European Union's institutional encroachment. From this perspective, Russian revisionism is an offensive measure driven by defensive motivations to preserve strategic depth, rather than an unconstrained ideological appetite for Soviet-style empire.
- Statism and Great-Power Identity: Contemporary Russian strategic culture is anchored in Derzhavnost—the conviction that Russia must remain an autonomous sovereign pole in world affairs to survive—rather than a drive for ideological conversion.
Conclusion
The expansionist policies of modern Russia indicate a drive to restore a pre-eminent sphere of privileged interest across historical imperial borderlands rather than the resurrection of the Soviet Union. The current regime functions as a revisionist civilisational state pursuing great-power statism within a fragmented global order, distinct from the global ideological enterprise of the twentieth-century Soviet state.