Exploring the potential consequences of a fragmented Russia

Russia. I have been doing a few of these what if X country broke up videos for a while and a lot of people have been requesting I do one about Russia. Now, the point of this video isn't to advocate for a division but simply to demonstrate how one isn't impossible due to the way the territory exists now. We usually call this country Russia but in reality, its official name is the Russian Federation. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many of the former Soviet Socialist republics became independent, creating their own countries. And what was before the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic has today reinvented itself into a federation divided into various republics, territories, autonomous zones, and federal cities. One could argue in a sort of smaller and modernized USSR. In order to understand how Russia could potentially be divided, we need to first understand in what ways it is already divided and organized today. Territorially, this is how. Russia has 85 federal subjects, the term used to gather all of these. 46 Oblasts, the ones in yellow on this map, they are essentially the regions or provinces of Russia proper. They have a governor and a local legislature, one of which is technically autonomous, the Jewish Oblast. Even though today only 1% of the population is Jewish, this is a whole topic in itself. 21 republics, autonomous but only in name, although each do have their own constitution, language, anthem, and legislature, but are represented by the federal government in international affairs. Each is usually home to a specific ethnic minority. 9 Krais, which are literally identical to Oblasts, at least legally. They just have a different name due to the historical period in which they were formed, but vary a lot between them due to where they are located. 4. Okrugs, autonomous districts, each with a substantial or predominant ethnic minority, at least that's the official definition, and two federal cities, the major ones which function as their own region. So now that we understand the ways in which Russia is territorially organized, how could it break up? I think the most reasonable scenario is that some of these republics or okrugs could break away, namely the ones in further away regions, like the Caucasus, Siberia or the Far East, with some others remaining as a part of Russia, and also the ones where local native cultures are predominant. For the sake of this video, I'm going to go with the hypothetical and highly unlikely scenario of each of them becoming independent, with Russia itself remaining only as its oblasts, federal cities, and some of the krais, with all republics, okrugs, and some of the krais becoming independent and breaking away from the federation. When it comes to the krais, it's not as easy to categorize as it seems. Even though they are legally identical to oblasts, they vary a lot. For instance, Krasnoyarsk is so large and in its own region that in the event of a breakup, one could say that it made sense for it to become its own country. But Russians make up 91% of the population, while the Krasnodar Krai or the Stavropol Krai are essentially just oblasts with a different name. It's also unlikely these would break away. And if all the republics and okrugs broke away, then what would happen to these oblasts which would now be territorially disconnected from the remainder of Russia. They would forcefully be independent or join the new countries around them. But then again, Kaliningrad didn't and exists as an exclave of Russia today, so maybe that could be the case for them as well. Because whether or not these breakaway states would each be independent on their own is another question. Many of them would likely not be economically and financially sustainable and be forced to unite with neighboring ones. This map of the economic regions of Russia shows us what is perhaps a more realistic division and a potential prediction of how these new states could gather up into new unions after becoming independent. So, now that we've established the hypothetical scenario, let's look further into it. Other than the fact that these territorial divisions exist, why would this separation be at all possible, even if highly unlikely? To answer that, we need to take a look at a few maps that shows us the differences within the territory of the Russian Federation, essentially explaining why these divisions exist even today. Culture and ethnicity is a big one. This map shows us the most prevalent culture in the old USSR territory. Now, while many of the places where other cultural groups other than the Russians existed are now their own independent states, many of them are not. For instance, Karelians still remain under Russian rule. In the Caucasus region, the people of Dagestan, for instance, are still part of the Federation, and many others of Turkic, Uralic, Altaic, Caucasian, or Siberian cultures live today under Russian rule in those federal subjects' territories. Obviously values may have changed since the USSR, but this more recent map points out the percentage of ethnic Russians in each region and we can see that in quite a few of them, Russians don't surpass 30%. Language itself might be one of the biggest differences between regions. Likely all people in Russia speak Russian, but they might speak a local language more in their daily lives. This map points that out. Although we have to be aware that minority languages are largely exaggerated here, some of them are spoken by like a hundred people, but still, their existence, even if fading away, proves that there are in fact different cultures throughout the Russian Federation. When it comes to religion, there are a few differences, even though most of the territory is Christian Orthodox, but Islamic and Buddhist territories do exist within the Federation. The lack of infrastructure in much of the Russian territory, mostly the one ruled locally by these autonomous regions, gives some reason to a possible bid for independence. If the central government doesn't help them, maybe they should help themselves. This comparison of the road infrastructure between Finland and Karelia in the border region is a good example. Population distribution is also a big issue. This map shows us precisely that. Most of the people are in the west and some along the southern borders, but almost no one lives in Siberia and the east. This other map shows us a division of Russia's population in three and it's crazy how few people live in the white territory, although maybe this is an argument against division. Many of the differences pointed out can be connected to the territory itself. For instance, this map of weather types clearly shows a big difference and it makes sense that different natural conditions lead to different cultures or less friendly terrain leads to less people living there. Russia proper almost matches the light blue climate area perfectly. So now, knowing the territorial divisions in both territorial organization and cultural elements, which new countries would effectively exist in this case? And how would this much smaller Russia end up looking like? Like I mentioned, the Russian Federation has 21 republics within it. According to their official designation, they are administrative divisions originally created as nation-states to represent areas of non-Russian ethnicity. So they are technically their own countries that supposedly agree to be represented by Russia in its foreign affairs. They're concentrated mostly in five areas. The Caucasus, where we can find republics such as Chechnya, Tatarstan, or Kalmykia. Kalmykia is a great example of its own culture. They are home to the Mongol people of the Kalmyks, the only region in Europe where Buddhism is the biggest religion, and also there are six other republics here, many of which have their own identity. The Ural region, I guess a little before the Urals, made up of six republics, which all border each other, plus a larger separated one, Komi, home to the Komi people. The other six consist of, for instance, Chuvashia, home to the Chuvash people, a Turkic ethnic group, or Bashkortostan, the most populated republic at 4 million people, previously known as Bashkiria and the first autonomous Soviet socialist republic in the USSR. The north has Karelia, right next to Finland, where Karelians make up 37% of the population, while Finns are 1%. Central Asia, where 4 republics exist, Khakassia, Altai, the least populated at 200,000 people, Tuva, which was actually a fully independent country from 1921 to 1944, and Buryatia, where native Buryats are 43% of the people, many of Mongolian heritage. In all of them, the native culture differs a lot from Russia's. And Siberia, where the only republic is Sakha, the world's largest country subdivision, where the native Sakhas make up 81% of the people and Russians are only 10%. One thing that immediately comes to mind is that the new countries could gather up in their own local unions, especially here in the Caucasus or in Central Asia where many are of Mongolian and or Islamic heritage. But also and especially in the Caucasus, the existence of these republics is justified precisely by the fact that the territories are effectively different from Russia and each other, like Chechnya or Dagestan, so new country unions would be unlikely here. Next we have the Okrugs, essentially defined as ethnic autonomous territories, all of them in the north, Chukotka in Siberia, home to only 50,000 people, 56% of which are native Chukchi, Khanty-Mansi, Nenets, in both of which Russians are a majority in, and Yamalo-Nenets, where Russians are only 42%. It's odd how these are supposed to be the territories where ethnic groups are most prevalent, But we find those local ethnicities much bigger in the republics. There used to be more okrugs but they have been disappearing with time. Speaking of which, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast could also break away. The Jewish faith isn't predominant in the region anymore, if it ever was, only 1% of the people. But to be fair, the ethnic groups aren't that predominant in the okrugs either. So it would be very interesting to have a second Jewish state parallel with Israel, assuming they would use that as their identity. Finally, we have some of the Oblasts and Krais which could also break away. essentially these ones in the east which would be territorially disconnected due to the independence of the republics but where russians are in fact the majority if we wanted to expand the scenario to an even more unlikely scenario we could consider the idea of the two federal cities breaking away into their own independent city-states moscow and saint petersburg it's odd how city-states aren't that common anymore when they used to be so prevalent throughout history this would be a cool video idea in itself why city-states are no longer a thing when they used to be, the remainder of Russia, Russia proper if you will, would look like this, much smaller than it is today. How it and all the other newly independent countries would fare as their own states is a whole different question. My point here was just to show how Russia is in fact culturally diverse and how a separation into many other republics isn't impossible because those differences do already exist and are confirmed by their territorial and administrative administrative organization. So, that is what a hypothetical separated Russia would look like, if the federation would break up. We would have several new countries, although perhaps not as many as the number of federal subjects. Some would give way to a real nation and people that are today hidden within Russia, while others would perhaps not make as much sense as their own country, perhaps justifying their current belonging to the federation. But I think there are a lot of these subjects that deserve having their own country, because like we saw, Russia's territory is home to various ethnicities, languages, cultures, and even religions. The chances of this happening are unlikely, if not impossible. Despite having their own cultures, it seems that these republics and territories don't have the means and true autonomy or democracy to make a path towards independence. And I'm not even sure they would want to. It would be really interesting to see a poll about this, but I don't think there are any real independence movements. Would you like to see this scenario happen and why or why not? Are there any other countries you think could break up or are there any of them you would like me to make a video on even if that separation is as unlikely as this one. Let me know in the comments along with your opinion about this. Thanks so much for watching this video. Subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for more general knowledge.