Actors

The form of the state from 1721 to 1917, architects of systemic assimilation. The Russian Empire is the successor of the Tsardom of Muscovy, officially proclaimed in 1721. It is characterized by the transition to a regular state, the creation of rigid imperial institutions (the Collegia, the Senate), and the final elimination of treaty-based relations with autonomies. Within the framework, this actor focuses on the unification of governance, the erasure of administrative boundaries, and the complete absorption of local political systems through the bureaucratic apparatus.

A state formation since 1991. It acts as an actor employing both inherited imperial instruments of hard power (military intervention, puppet governments, mass killings) and modern methods of control (economic and transport blockades, proxy wars through security services, cyberattacks, networked propaganda, and indoctrination).

A state formation on the territory of the former Russian Empire, proclaimed after the February Revolution. It was governed by the Provisional Government. It existed from March to November 1917, after which it was overthrown as a result of the Bolshevik coup.

A state formed as a result of the Bolshevik coup in November 1917 (official name from July 1918: the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic). It acted as the principal actor of military expansion, hybrid war, and the colonial absorption of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) in 1917–1922. In December 1922 it became a co-founder and the core part of the USSR.

A historical form of the Russian state (1547–1721).

A totalitarian imperial state, officially proclaimed on December 30, 1922; de facto, a geographic expansion of the regime established by the Bolshevik party in Petrograd in October 1917. It acted as the principal actor of colonial absorption, retention, and exploitation until its collapse in 1991. While formally declaring a union of equal independent republics with the right of free secession, in practice the USSR implemented rigid unification and centralization of governance in Moscow (concentrating absolute power in the Politburo of the Central Committee). This led to the de facto elimination of the political, economic, and cultural sovereignty of the colonized nations. Within the framework, this actor is characterized by an unprecedented scale of social engineering: total control over society, the dissemination of information, the economy, and education; the use of institutional terror; the physical annihilation of the peasantry through artificial famine; mass ethnic cleansing by deporting peoples to other regions of the empire; as well as a policy of systematic Russification and the destruction/incorporation/Russification of national elites.

A military-political movement (the Armed Forces of South Russia) that advocated the restoration of a "one and indivisible" Russia. In 1918–1920 it conducted combat operations on the territory of Ukraine against both the Bolsheviks and the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR), denying Ukraine's right to independence.