Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union

Officials and media in the Russian Federation originally used the term “blizhnee zarubezhe” (“near abroad”) to refer to the other former Soviet republics that gained independence when the USSR collapsed at the end of 1991. Most Russians had psychological difficulties in thinking of these territories as independent states; governing their inter-relations, so long a concern of domestic policy, had suddenly become a matter of foreign policy. Boundaries that had been internal (and largely meaningless) had become international borders overnight (Donaldson and Nogee 2009).