Ethnic Russians in post-Soviet states

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1991, about 25 million ethnic Russians in post-Soviet states found themselves living outside the Russian Federation.

All former Soviet citizens had a time window within which they could transfer their former Soviet citizenship to Russian citizenship. Where they did not exercise that choice, their resulting citizenship status outside Russia varied by state: from no perceivable change in status - as in Belarus - to becoming permanently resident "non-citizens" - as in Estonia and Latvia, which restricted citizenship to their pre-World War II citizens and their offspring (regardless of ethnic group) upon restoration of their independence in continuity with their sovereign identities prior to June 1940.

However, most people in practice found the "time window" concept not feasible, as the citizenship issue linked closely to the issue of owning property owned by the state before privatization. For many people, a change of citizenship would actually mean relocating and leaving behind everything - or most of what they had previously owned or been able to access.

As of 2014^[update] the largest ethnic Russian diaspora populations outside Russia live in the United States and in the "near abroad" countries. The populations involved include those in: Ukraine (about 8 million), Kazakhstan (about 3.8 million), the United States (about 3 million), Belarus (about 780,000), Uzbekistan (about 650,000) Kyrgyzstan (about 360,000) and Latvia (about 556,422).

In June 2006 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to introduce national policy aiming at encouraging ethnic Russian immigration to Russia.

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