Politics
Kremlin Moving to Strengthen Control over the Cossacks
May 9, 2025
- Richard ArnoldProfessor of political science, Muskingum University
Political scientist Richard Arnold argues that a recent regional initiative to remove a sculpture of Pyotr Krasnov in Rostov Region is part of a Kremlin effort to eliminate any trace of Cossack autonomy.
Sculpture of Cossack Don Ataman Pyotr Krasnov (disputed) in a village in Rostov Region that was ordered removed by the regional authorities in May 2025. Source: Livejournal
On April 25, Yuri Slyusar, the governor of Rostov Region, a region with deep Cossack roots, declared at the end of his annual report before the regional assembly that a sculpture of Pyotr Krasnov in the village of Yelansky, would be removed. The statue was part of a museum created to celebrate the identity of the Don Cossacks.
Krasnov, a collaborator with the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), is a particularly controversial figure. In the context of the manifold references to the fight against the Nazis as a mobilizing narrative in Russia’s current “special military operation” in Ukraine and the refrain that Ukraine’s government is run by neo-Nazis, the desire to remove Krasnov’s statue is understandable. This is all the more so given the timing, just before the grand celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War
Except that whom the statue depicts is, in fact, contested. While the governor of the region claims that it is Krasnov, the owner of the Don Cossack museum, Vladimir Melikhov, claims it is just any Cossack and that the museum instead memorializes the “tragedy that the Cossacks experienced in the 20th century, having been subjected to genocide by the Soviet authorities.” The alleged depiction of Krasnov, in other words, is just a pretext – an interpretation lent credibility by a 2009 court ruling that the statue was indeed not one of Krasnov. Overall, this latest move by the regional government represents another nail in the coffin of the Cossack autonomist/separatist movement from the 1990s, probably with an eye to using Cossacks in narratives to consolidate gains in eastern Ukraine today. To appreciate the significance of both points, however, let’s revisit the history of the Cossacks in the region.
The contentious role of the Cossacks in Russian memory
While there are several theories about the origins of the Cossacks, there are two dominant interpretations. One is that the Cossacks are nothing more than a military estate recruited by the tsars to help expand the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, even into North America. The other, ethnos interpretation casts the Cossacks as a people emerging from the mixing of different groups on the Eurasian steppe. Some Cossacks allied with the Russian tsars, but others did not (but still remained Cossacks as an ethnic community).
The history of the Cossacks prior to and in the Soviet Union (discussed by your author here) is complicated, but what is important for this discussion is that some of those who believed Cossack to be an ethnic identity left Russia for Europe during the Russian Civil War. Krasnov, a former officer in the Russian army in World War I, was based in Berlin on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and advocated for Russians to join the Germans and overthrow the Bolsheviks. After the end of the war, Krasnov was repatriated and hanged by the Soviet authorities in 1947.
In the post-Soviet era, the ethnic definition of the Cossacks emerged again in short-lived secessionist and autonomist movements, one of whose leaders, Nikolai Kozitsyn, even signed a memorandum of understanding with Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudaev in 1994. Melikhov’s museum, created to preserve anti-Bolshevik agitation among the Don Cossacks, is part of the ethnic Cossack narrative. At least in part because Melikhov hoped thus to unite the Don Cossacks on these terms, there have been numerous FSB raids over the years on the museum.
The co-optation of the Cossacks by the Kremlin is symbolized by the fact that Kozitsyn himself took part in supporting the regime’s Donbas operation back in 2014 and led the brigade that shot down flight MH17.
Today, the state-run All-Russian Cossack Society, known by its Russian acronym VSKO, has a membership of approximately 161,000, a substantial youth movement and claims to have provided up to 50,000 “volunteer” soldiers for the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Cossack image is important to Ukrainian nationalism, such that Duma Deputy Viktor Vodolatsky, a former ataman (chieftain) of the Don Cossacks and the leader of an organization uniting Cossacks outside of Russia, said: “if we knock out this ideological crutch, the whole system of Ukraine will fall apart.” Note that the distinctly ethnic Cossack movement is closer to Ukrainian understandings of Cossack identity, though it is not one and the same.
Targeting Melikhov as the last nail in the coffin of the autonomist movement
This is the context in which Slyusar’s comment should be understood.
Krasnov, a collaborator with the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45), is a particularly controversial figure. In the context of the manifold references to the fight against the Nazis as a mobilizing narrative in Russia’s current “special military operation” in Ukraine and the refrain that Ukraine’s government is run by neo-Nazis, the desire to remove Krasnov’s statue is understandable. This is all the more so given the timing, just before the grand celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War
Except that whom the statue depicts is, in fact, contested. While the governor of the region claims that it is Krasnov, the owner of the Don Cossack museum, Vladimir Melikhov, claims it is just any Cossack and that the museum instead memorializes the “tragedy that the Cossacks experienced in the 20th century, having been subjected to genocide by the Soviet authorities.” The alleged depiction of Krasnov, in other words, is just a pretext – an interpretation lent credibility by a 2009 court ruling that the statue was indeed not one of Krasnov. Overall, this latest move by the regional government represents another nail in the coffin of the Cossack autonomist/separatist movement from the 1990s, probably with an eye to using Cossacks in narratives to consolidate gains in eastern Ukraine today. To appreciate the significance of both points, however, let’s revisit the history of the Cossacks in the region.
The contentious role of the Cossacks in Russian memory
While there are several theories about the origins of the Cossacks, there are two dominant interpretations. One is that the Cossacks are nothing more than a military estate recruited by the tsars to help expand the Russian Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, even into North America. The other, ethnos interpretation casts the Cossacks as a people emerging from the mixing of different groups on the Eurasian steppe. Some Cossacks allied with the Russian tsars, but others did not (but still remained Cossacks as an ethnic community).
The history of the Cossacks prior to and in the Soviet Union (discussed by your author here) is complicated, but what is important for this discussion is that some of those who believed Cossack to be an ethnic identity left Russia for Europe during the Russian Civil War. Krasnov, a former officer in the Russian army in World War I, was based in Berlin on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and advocated for Russians to join the Germans and overthrow the Bolsheviks. After the end of the war, Krasnov was repatriated and hanged by the Soviet authorities in 1947.
In the post-Soviet era, the ethnic definition of the Cossacks emerged again in short-lived secessionist and autonomist movements, one of whose leaders, Nikolai Kozitsyn, even signed a memorandum of understanding with Chechen separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudaev in 1994. Melikhov’s museum, created to preserve anti-Bolshevik agitation among the Don Cossacks, is part of the ethnic Cossack narrative. At least in part because Melikhov hoped thus to unite the Don Cossacks on these terms, there have been numerous FSB raids over the years on the museum.
The co-optation of the Cossacks by the Kremlin is symbolized by the fact that Kozitsyn himself took part in supporting the regime’s Donbas operation back in 2014 and led the brigade that shot down flight MH17.
Today, the state-run All-Russian Cossack Society, known by its Russian acronym VSKO, has a membership of approximately 161,000, a substantial youth movement and claims to have provided up to 50,000 “volunteer” soldiers for the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Cossack image is important to Ukrainian nationalism, such that Duma Deputy Viktor Vodolatsky, a former ataman (chieftain) of the Don Cossacks and the leader of an organization uniting Cossacks outside of Russia, said: “if we knock out this ideological crutch, the whole system of Ukraine will fall apart.” Note that the distinctly ethnic Cossack movement is closer to Ukrainian understandings of Cossack identity, though it is not one and the same.
Targeting Melikhov as the last nail in the coffin of the autonomist movement
This is the context in which Slyusar’s comment should be understood.
“By ordering the removal of the Krasnov statue, the regional governor is probably acting on Kremlin orders to eliminate the last vestiges of the Cossack autonomist movement.”
Cossacks marching in Red Square at the 2015 Victory Day Parade. Source: Wiki Commons
Like so much else in Russian society, Cossack identity will be brought completely under the direction of the Kremlin and molded as the state sees fit.
There have been signs that this is on the agenda, like the creation of institutional structures uniting the ethnic and registered varieties of Cossacks
The current ataman of the VSKO, Vitaly Kuznetsov, said that the war in Ukraine is bringing the two sides of the movement together. He claimed in an interview that “on the front lines there is no difference between registered and [ethnic].” In addition, a website, kazachestvo.ru, which was launched after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, appears designed to coordinate interaction between them.
Elsewhere, the Kremlin seems to be promoting the unity of the Cossack movement –in the process wiping out inconvenient historical facts, such as that of separatism.
The last federal budget suggested that fundings for the VSKO would “more than double” between 2025 and 2027. At the same time, Cossack societies throughout Russia are entrenching their hold on social life, including schooling, cadet organizations and even daycares. The “league of Cossack universities” now contains 26 institutions, and Kuznetsov has said “I am firmly convinced that the most powerful noncommercial organization in Russia is the Cossacks.” Ethnic and registered Cossacks have come together in 2024 and 2025 in “great circles,” an institution which gives a nod to Cossack traditions of warrior democracy. For context, these represent the third and fourth “great circles” since 1990. Finally, the state has institutionalized new Cossack hosts (voiska) in Northwest Russia (St Petersburg and Kaliningrad), as well as in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Eastern Ukraine: A Cossack ethnic republic?
There have been signs that this is on the agenda, like the creation of institutional structures uniting the ethnic and registered varieties of Cossacks
The current ataman of the VSKO, Vitaly Kuznetsov, said that the war in Ukraine is bringing the two sides of the movement together. He claimed in an interview that “on the front lines there is no difference between registered and [ethnic].” In addition, a website, kazachestvo.ru, which was launched after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, appears designed to coordinate interaction between them.
Elsewhere, the Kremlin seems to be promoting the unity of the Cossack movement –in the process wiping out inconvenient historical facts, such as that of separatism.
The last federal budget suggested that fundings for the VSKO would “more than double” between 2025 and 2027. At the same time, Cossack societies throughout Russia are entrenching their hold on social life, including schooling, cadet organizations and even daycares. The “league of Cossack universities” now contains 26 institutions, and Kuznetsov has said “I am firmly convinced that the most powerful noncommercial organization in Russia is the Cossacks.” Ethnic and registered Cossacks have come together in 2024 and 2025 in “great circles,” an institution which gives a nod to Cossack traditions of warrior democracy. For context, these represent the third and fourth “great circles” since 1990. Finally, the state has institutionalized new Cossack hosts (voiska) in Northwest Russia (St Petersburg and Kaliningrad), as well as in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
Eastern Ukraine: A Cossack ethnic republic?
“One means of consolidating Kremlin control over Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson is through the creation of Cossack hosts there.”
From erecting Cossack crosses on hills in Donetsk Region to establishing working groups to coordinate the activities of Cossack hosts across the four regions, the Kremlin is actively exploiting the region’s past for propaganda purposes.
While it is very early to speculate about the Kremlin’s institutional plans for these territories, one option is an “Cossack ethnic republic,” either just in Zaporizhzhia or covering a slightly larger area. A meeting in Rostov between the presidential plenipotentiary for the Southern Federal District and representatives from the nationalities ministry seems to suggest the viability of such a move. So too does the placement of VSKO advisor Alexei Yasinsky in the Zaporizhzhia regional parliament in October 2024.
The benefit of an “Cossack ethnic republic” would be softer, more palatable framing of the annexation to build up a loyal constituency in the region, which could legitimize further land grabs in Ukraine. For this to happen, however, the Kremlin first needs to suppress what remains of the secessionist movement from the 1990s once and for all, beginning with the removal of statues of Krasnov (whether it is him or not). In doing this and in such a manner, the regime is also revealing its insecurities.
While it is very early to speculate about the Kremlin’s institutional plans for these territories, one option is an “Cossack ethnic republic,” either just in Zaporizhzhia or covering a slightly larger area. A meeting in Rostov between the presidential plenipotentiary for the Southern Federal District and representatives from the nationalities ministry seems to suggest the viability of such a move. So too does the placement of VSKO advisor Alexei Yasinsky in the Zaporizhzhia regional parliament in October 2024.
The benefit of an “Cossack ethnic republic” would be softer, more palatable framing of the annexation to build up a loyal constituency in the region, which could legitimize further land grabs in Ukraine. For this to happen, however, the Kremlin first needs to suppress what remains of the secessionist movement from the 1990s once and for all, beginning with the removal of statues of Krasnov (whether it is him or not). In doing this and in such a manner, the regime is also revealing its insecurities.
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