Putin's top government officials made a rare statement, mentioning the outcome of Russia's fragmentation.

Shoigu issued an article expressing his position on behalf of the Putin administration on the Russian ethnic issue, stressing that Western countries want to split Russia into dozens of small nations in order to ¡°slave, exploit and exploit¡± them for their own private interests.

Shoigu's statement is not groundless. Using ethnic issues to weaken opponents is a geostrategy that the West has used for hundreds of years, and this strategy has indeed achieved excellent results when targeting the Soviet Union and Russia.

In the end of the Cold War, Gorbachev reformed in accordance with the Western line, triggering a wave of separation in the Baltic three countries, and the subsequent chain effects, along with other internal problems, prompted the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The newly formed Russia, which is also a multi-ethnic state, has a total of 194 ethnic groups, and among the more than 80 federal subjects in the country, including more than 30 ethnic autonomous subjects, the West has thought about continuing to use the ethnic problems to weaken Russia.

During the Yeltsin period, Russia's internal political situation was chaotic, the military was abandoned, and the federal government was unable to prevent the issue of ethnic separation from intensifying. Especially in the North Caucasus, two Chechen wars broke out.

Although after Putin came to power, the domestic situation in Russia gradually stabilized, the power of ethnic autonomous entities was greatly weakened, and national separatist forces were also attacked, related issues have not been completely resolved.

This has led the western camp to believe that they can continue to use ethnic issues to disrupt Russia and even repeat the scene of that year, causing Russia to disintegrate like the Soviet Union.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict continues, and the various problems that arise in Russia give the West an opportunity to see.

Due to the double impact of the war's high military spending and Western sanctions, Russia's economic growth slowed, inflation increased, and the federal government failed to continue to provide massive subsidies to ethnic minority settlements, inevitably leading to dissatisfaction among some ethnic minorities.

At the same time, the problem of large-Russianism in the Russian military and governmental system was further aggravated during the war.

Due to the general poor economic development in ethnic areas, during the Russian army's vigorous recruitment process, the enthusiasm of young and middle-aged adults in ethnic areas to join the army is higher than that in economically developed areas.

However, when the Russian army assigns positions, it often gives priority to assigning soldiers from Russian, Belarusian and other ethnic groups to better-paid technical, logistics and other positions, while ethnic soldiers from remote areas such as the Far East and the Caucasus are more assigned to infantry and other units.

This led to a high casualty rate among ethnic minority soldiers in the war. Separatist forces and the West took the opportunity to carry out a series of negative publicity, and protests against conscription broke out in some ethnic areas.

In this tense situation, some ethnic minority elites began to use separatism and other issues to bargain with the federal government to gain more benefits for themselves.

Kadyrov is now trying to continue to send troops to Ukraine, striving for Putin to allow him to continue to engage in the death of his father and his son, so that his family can control the military and political power of Chechnya for a long time. On the other hand, he secretly supports the Chechen parliament to pass a de-Russian town renaming bill, strengthening the independence of Chechnya and increasing the difficulty of Moscow replacing people in charge of Chechnya.

If their own interests are not met, some ethnic minority elites may fuse with separatist forces, or even conspire with the West.

Powerful departments such as the Federal Security Service are indeed responding to the infiltration of countries such as Ukraine and have invested more energy in preventing domestic separatist forces from colluding with external forces. The National Guards are also accelerating the reloading of the National Guards. However, after the main force of the Russian army entered Ukraine to fight, Moscow's fist against internal chaos has still weakened a lot.

Indeed, after the last 20 years of Putin¡¯s internal reforms, the power of the ethnic autonomous subjects of Russia has been greatly weakened, and the Russian ethnic population in many regions has long surpassed the ethnic minorities, coupled with close economic ties, the likelihood of collective rebellion of all the ethnic autonomous subjects of Russia is low, and the West wants to push Russia into dozens of small nations is no less difficult.

But as long as the separatist forces in one or two regions officially raise the anti-flag, it is a heavy blow for the Putin administration, and now Russia, can not tolerate an internal war of turmoil, the Putin administration needs to prevent the future.

Shoigu has now published an article reaffirming Russia's multi-ethnic history, culture and values as both a warning and a mobilization, aimed at consolidating domestic consensus, strengthening national identity, reminding local governments to prevent the spread of separatist ideas, and preventing external forces from shattering Russia's stable roots with the help of national cracks.

It can be predicted that the game between Russia and the West on domestic ethnic issues will continue.

In the future, Putin's government is bound to take a two-pronged approach in ideological propaganda and security control, not only strengthening national identity with "soft means", but also suppressing signs of separatism with "hard measures" such as expanding the National Guard.

However, under the dual pressure of war and sanctions, whether Russia can truly avoid internal turmoil and maintain federal unity is still a long-term test of its governance ability and ethnic policy.

The strategic intentions of the West have been revealed, and Russia¡¯s response will determine whether it will move towards a deeper integration or fall into a new geological fragmentation.