The separation of Russia’s smaller ethnic nations may become possible only if instability emerges inside Russia and strong ethnic leaders appear.
This opinion was expressed by Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov during the Kyiv Stratcom Forum 2026.
“They will be able to break away when a leader emerges and when destabilization begins in Russia. Yes, at that point all of this becomes possible — under these two conditions. First, internal destabilization, or weakness, which for them is essentially the same thing. And second, the presence of a national leader who is actually on the ground,” he said.
Budanov noted that local leaders are currently not strong enough. At the same time, according to him, there are several serious ethnic leaders, but most of them are currently outside the territory of the Russian Federation. The head of the Presidential Office added that the return of these leaders to Russia would become a major challenge to the country’s territorial integrity.
In addition, the official emphasized that the Russian authorities continuously broadcast narratives and ideological messaging through television and cultural products, shaping a distorted perception of the world similar to North Korea’s model of information isolation.
“I’ll give you an interesting example. In Moscow, in one of the central museums — I think it’s a war museum — there is an entire exhibition hall built, believe me, beautifully. If you didn’t think about what it was dedicated to, it would be one of the best exhibitions in the world. There are exhibits, photographs, interactive elements — everything works. It probably cost billions, not millions. One of the halls is called the ‘Museum of Ukrainian Nazism.’ If you walked in there and were, for example, not from Ukraine, you would believe all of it. Absolutely everything is presented logically and correctly according to their ideology. It has nothing to do with reality, but it is constructed absolutely properly and logically. So a person who sees it genuinely believes it. If you speak with ordinary Russians, many of them will repeat these examples to you, because they are shown and told all of this 24/7. It is a complete substitution of reality. Something like North Korea, where an artificial perception of the world has been created. They are moving along that path,” he said.
Budanov added that Russians can only be “deprogrammed” through a gradual change in the information environment, including exposure to a different reality.
