Russian colonialism

Question: "Is / Was Russia a colonial empire?"

Answer: As other large empires, Russia also engaged in large scale colonialism.

Territorial evolution of Russia (Wikipedia)

Alexander Morrison: Russia’s Colonial Allergy

The difference is that in the USA, and in other western democracies, those who deny or defend colonialism are constantly and robustly challenged. In Russia, the deniers have the power of the state behind them, and the challengers are a small and embattled minority.

Literature

Dittmar Schorkowitz: Was Russia a Colonial Empire?

While offering an outlook on decolonization worldwide in their remarkable oeuvre, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper frankly admit that “Vladimir Putin revived the techniques of patrimonial power … to tighten control over religious institutions, bring the media to heel … and reenter the competition for Russia’s borderlands” (2010, 455). Obviously, the “Russian empire has reappeared in yet another transmutation on its Eurasian space” (ibid.). Colonialism in Russia is not a thing of the past, and decolonization there “is thus by no means concluded” (Reinhard 2011, 266).

p. 137

Examples of brutal Russian colonialism

Circassian genocide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassian_genocide