Vladimir Putin recently admitted that Russia is an artificial construct created by violence. This is a bombshell, putting to the lie Russian propaganda’s longstanding claim that some spiritual entity called Russia has existed since time immemorial.

In fact, Putin reduced Russia to its soldiers’ feet — hardly an elevated comparison.

In his address to the plenary session of the Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 20, Putin made the following astounding, and deeply subversive, claim: “wherever the foot of a Russian soldier steps is ours.” Whereas we apply the word “Russian” to both the ethnic designation (russkii) and the political designation (rossiiskii), Russians distinguish between the two. Significantly, Putin specifically referred to the ethnically Russian russkii soldier.

In effect if not in intent, Putin reduced Russia (the political entity) to the lands conquered by ethnically russkii soldiers, thereby giving the lie to the claim that Russia is a “federation” of happily coexisting nations, the largest of which happens to be russkii. This is an admission both of Russia’s being (and always having been) an empire, and of the subordinate status of its non-Russian nations, brought into the imperial fold by........

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