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

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.

In June 2006 Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a plan to introduce national policy aiming at encouraging ethnic Russian immigration to Russia.^[1]

Ethnic Russians in post-Soviet states

Country	Number of ethnic Russians	Percent of national population	As of (census data)
Ukraine	8,334,141	17.2	2001
Belarus	706,992	7.5	2019
Uzbekistan	750,000	2.3	2017[b]
Kazakhstan	3,429,747	17.9	2022[2]
Georgia	26,586	0.7	2014[a]
Azerbaijan	119,300	1.35	2009
Lithuania	139,507	4.8	2015
Moldova	111,726	4.1	2014
Latvia	454,350	24.2	2022
Kyrgyzstan	364,500	6.2	2015[3]
Tajikistan	34,838	0.5	2010
Armenia	11,862	0.4	2011
Turkmenistan	297,913	4	2000
Estonia	315,252	23.6	2022

^{^} Does not include Abkhazia (2011 census: 22,077 Russians or 9.1% of the population) or South Ossetia (2007 estimate: 2,100 Russians or 3.0% of the population).

^{^} In Turkmenistan, there were estimated to be at most 150,000 ethnic Russians as of 2007, or under 2% of the population. In Uzbekistan the same year, the Russian population stood at some 800,000 people or under 4% of the country.^[4]

References