The Ukrainian diaspora is a complex social phenomenon. In particular, there is a conditional division into eastern and western diasporas, which were formed in different historical contexts and have some features of modern functioning. Among the eastern parts of the Ukrainian diaspora, the Russian one is the most numerous; at the same time, it is also the largest in the world. However, on the path to preserving their national identity, Ukrainian organizations in the Russian Federation constantly face many negative trends, and today it should be frankly recognized that the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia is going through a deep crisis.
Citizens of Russia who consciously identify themselves as ethnic Ukrainians in the Russian Federation number 1 million 930 thousand (according to the results of the 2010 census), while there were 2 million 940 thousand (according to the results of the 2002 census). In fact, there are many more of them. They are the third largest ethnic group (after Russians and Tatars), and the second largest ethnic group that does not have its own territorial autonomy in the Russian Federation. In addition, about 2 million labor migrants are constantly present here. The reduction in the number of Ukrainians by a million over the course of eight years testifies to the irreversible processes of assimilation and destruction of the Ukrainian diaspora in Russia.
Assimilation is the main enemy of national identity, and it is much harder for Ukrainians in Russia to fight it than for their fellow Ukrainians living in other countries (primarily Western ones), because there they mainly communicate in their native language and unite around their churches; Ukrainian communities are more closed and therefore less prone to assimilation. In Russia, everything is exactly the opposite.
There are several reasons that led to the current crisis.
First: the traditional attitude of the Russian authorities to the Ukrainian issue — everything remains the same as a hundred or two hundred years ago.
Second: complex Ukrainian-Russian interstate relations and, as a result, Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in the form of a “hybrid war.”
Third: the mental heterogeneity of Ukrainians in Russia and the existing organizations.
Fourth: insufficient support by the Ukrainian state for public associations of Ukrainians in the Russian Federation in defending their interests aimed at preserving national identity, as required by the Constitution.
The outcome — the search for extremist literature in Ukrainian libraries and their subsequent closure in 2004, and after six years, the liquidation by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of both all-Russian public organizations: the Association of Ukrainians of Russia (AUR) in 2012 and the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians of Russia (FNCA UR) two years earlier, as well as the creation by the Kremlin, instead of the latter, of a pseudo-Ukrainian autonomy with the same name but far in spirit from everything Ukrainian. And the new All-Russian Public Organization “Ukrainian Congress of Russia” (UCR), created in May 2012 instead of the AUR, was twice refused registration by the Ministry of Justice.
The oppression of the Ukrainian movement in the Russian Federation did not end there: quite recently, the Russian authorities included both world diaspora superstructures — the World Congress of Ukrainians (WCU) and the Ukrainian World Coordinating Council (UWCC) — in the so-called “patriotic stop list of undesirable organizations” (foreign agents). This jeopardized the activities of five regional public organizations in Russia that were admitted to the WCU three years ago.