Russia for Russians

Another version attributes the notion to Alexander III, who declared that "Russia should belong to Russians, and all others dwelling on this land must respect and appreciate this people".

"[7][8]In the last decades of the 19th century, some Russian political movements proposed reclassifying "Russia" as an ethnic or even as a racial category.

Such exclusive nationalists denounced non-Russians as grossly ungrateful for the benefits they had received from Russian rule.

[9] Although these sentiments caught the minds of some intellectuals in the latter part of the 19th century, right-wing xenophobic organizations originated during the Russian Revolution of 1905, when political parties were finally legalized.

"[13]Another notable politician, Prime Minister Sergei Witte, warned Tsar Nicholas II against his flirtation with these ideas because it would disrupt the delicate ethnic balance in the Russian state.

[18] With the outbreak of a second war in Chechnya in 1998 and growing antipathy to "strangers" in Russia after Vladimir Putin's advent to power, the proportion of those who subscribe to the maxim "Russia for Russians" began to increase, partly as a reaction to the crisis and instability and uncertainty of the 1990s as well as growing public discontent with the influx of migrants from Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and China.

[23] The victims of ethnic and racial violence also reported hearing chants of "Russia for Russians" during attacks.

One of the elderly men asked Vladimir Putin what his and his party's stance on "Russia for Russians" slogan was.

Putin also warned that the law enforcement agencies should act as soon as possible against such people who threaten public order.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, has accused the top Russian officials of promoting the notion.

[33] The investigation was conducted in connection with a case of assaulting a Caucasian teenage migrant from Dagestan who was almost killed near his school.