Near abroad

American journalist and political commentator William Safire describes the term as the "most significant diplomatic coinage since the popularization of detente" that entered into the English language in early 1992.

[1] Early attempts to translate the Russian term include "the concept of 'abroad close at hand'", "nearby foreign lands", and "countries not far abroad".

[1] Christian Caryl noted that a Russian historian, Ivan Ivanovich, told him in 1991 that originally the term had an ironic gist, as a distinction from the "true" abroad.

[1] William Safire also mentions an opinion that the term was widely used by Soviet dissidents in the 1970s–1980s as an ironic reference to the "socialist comrades", i.e., the members of the Eastern Bloc.

[1] In 1992, Andrei Kozyrev also referred to South Korea as a near abroad: "the priority of the Russian Foreign Ministry is to have good neighborly relations with all those who directly surround us.