Putin continuing ‘efforts to subjugate Ukraine’ demanding territory
British Intelligence has said that Russian authorities have been directed to build Russian identity and increase the use of the Russian language in the territory it illegally occupies in Ukraine.
This is according to a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, published on 25 November 2025.
The document, titled ‘Strategy of Russia’s national policy in the period to 2036, highlights a continued Russification policy, forcing Russian language, identity and culture on to the residents of sovereign Ukrainian territory.
The latest defence intelligence update on Thursday confirms that the policy forms part of Russia’s longstanding efforts to extirpate Ukrainian culture and identity, and delegitimise Ukrainian statehood.
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Russia now defines both occupied and unoccupied Ukrainian territory in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, as well as Crimea, as being part of the Russian Federation.
This directly contradicts Russia’s own formal recognition of Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The document’s reference to these sovereign Ukrainian oblasts as ‘historical territories of the Russian state emphasises the overtly imperialist aspect of Russia’s continuing efforts to subjugate Ukraine.
The Russian dictator threatened that the Ukrainian territories they annexed in 2022 “will remain” under their sovereignty, warning that any violations is considered “an attack on Russia.”
In 2024 Putin lowered the nuclear doctrine accusing the West of helping Ukraine with billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment and sharing battlefield intelligence.
In 2020 Vladimir Putin set the current nuclear doctrine which means if his red line of a conventional attack on Russian territory, a threat against the state or in the event of a nuclear attack Moscow will respond with nuclear weapons.
At the time the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the West has “gone too far” and Russia will protect their territory.
