Russia (21st Century Crisis)

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian: Союз возвышенных советских республик, Soyuz vozvyshennykh sovetskikh respublik), also known as the Soviet Union or the USSR as well as Vostochnoslavia (lit. "Land of the East Slavs" in Russian) or even just Russia, is a country in Eastern Europe and Central Asia that consists of the Soviet Republics of Russia, Belarus, Chechnya, Crimea, Tajikistan, Karelia, Moldova, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Originally founded as a socialist and communist nation, the Soviet Union today is a capitalist and democratic country. In 1992, many of the Soviet republics, namely Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia broke away from the Soviet Union. However, Russia and Belarus stayed together, and in 1994, were re-joined by Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan; and after the Soviet involvement in the Crimea Crisis, a portion of Ukraine, as well as Crimea later on.

The Soviet Union borders Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to the east, Ukraine and Romania to the south as well as the Black Sea.

The Soviet Union is currently one of the competing military powers of the world, boasting the largest tank, artillery and anti-aircraft force, with a strong navy and air force that projects power in Europe, Asia and Africa.

In addition, the Soviet Union is also considered one of the oil and gas powers of the world, producing more oil than Saudi Arabia, and producing natural gas, to which all of Europe and even Asia relies on.

The major religions are Christianity - which the majority follows (Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox Church), followed by Islam, Buddhism and Shamanism. While Russian is designated as the national language, the Soviet Union has many official languages, they are: Russian, Belarusian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Romanian, Finnish, Tajik, Chechen and Tatar as the 1992 Soviet Constitution recognizes the language of each Soviet state to be granted with official government recognition. Though Russian is the required language while the other six languages are designated as optional languages.

Communist Era 1917-1991
In 1992, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev announced that the Soviet Union would transition into a free market economy, among other major reforms. The name "socialist" was dropped from the Soviet Union's official name, and simply became the Union of Soviet Republics. In addition, Gorbachev allowed for the formation of political parties in the Soviet Union. As a result of Gorbachev's policies, he was elected as the first president of the Soviet Union, representing the Liberal Democratic Party. He defeated a coup attempt led by pro-western Boris Yeltsin, and had Yeltsin imprisoned, and later decided to have him shot, fearing that Yeltsin would become a "Yankee puppet".

Modern Era 1991-present
Soviet forces removed as much of their militaries from the new republics, especially the Baltics and Central Asia. All of the ethnic Russian soldiers left, and members of the former Soviet air force flew all aircraft back into Russia. Gorbachev stated, "They can fend for themselves". For some time, the USSR was renamed as SFR Vostokslavia, an influence taken from Yugoslavia (lit. "Land of the South Slavs"), where Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were the "Land of the East Slavs". In this new descendant of the Soviet Union, Orthodoxy and the pre-1922 Russian culture was revived.

However, the Soviet military's expenditure fell from $300 billion to $73 billion in USD.

Gorbachev rejected Chechen independence, but he allowed Chechnya to exist as a Soviet republic rather than become part of SFR Russia.

In addition, Gorbachev kept the Soviet Union's world power status by keeping all of the nuclear forces active.

Seeing that the Soviet Union simply would not collapse, and seeing it in its weakened state, some NATO leaders called for a hot war against the Soviet Union, bringing into mind Operation Unthinkable. Other objected due to the continued Soviet possession of nukes.

In 1994, seeing that life was even more miserable in the post-Soviet era, Kazakhstan and Moldova re-joined the Soviet Union amid favorable views of it.

During the Yugoslav Wars, the Soviet government sent forces to help the People's Yugoslav Army get rid of ethnic nationalist paramilitary groups in 1992. NATO has even more alarmed when the Soviet military was seen by NATO spies helping construct a nuclear base in Belgrade. This is because Gorbachev and Slobodan Milošević had secretly signed a nuclear deal. NATO sent assassin squads after the Soviets, only to fail in their operations.

Thus, NATO and the Soviets conducted air strikes against their designated targets, avoiding direct confrontation.

This resulted in NATO preparing for a naval and aerial assault on the Soviet Union. Gorbachev ordered all forces in the homeland to make their preparations. However, NATO pulled back on their invasion plan, seeing as to how a hot war with the Soviet Union would result in massive devastation, and a possible nuclear retaliation. Instead, NATO funded the Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish forces and pro-western Ukrainians to invade the Soviet Union. However, they too, pulled back, preventing what potentially could have become, World War III.

The Soviet Strategic Missile Troops also delivered loads of SAM systems and missile weapons to the JNA, which allowed them to effectively wipe out all opposition.

A renewed Soviet-backed Yugoslav offensive took back Bosnia from pro-NATO forces.

The joint Yugoslav-Soviet effort against NATO succeeded, and ended with a Yugoslav victory in 1994, and the opposition fled to Greece. However, the battered Soviet forces took a serious blow against the aerial and naval might of NATO. Some Soviet leaders had suggested that Stavka remove some funding for the ground forces, and put some real efforts into building and improving the Navy and the Air Force.

The Belgrade Nuclear Base finally began to see rapid progress. The West had made desperate diplomatic attempts for Yugoslavia to withdraw from its nuclear deal with the Soviet Union, including paying war reparations for damages. Yet, the government in Belgrade refused.

Gorbachev eventually decided that Yugoslavia would be the Soviet Union's last voluntary overseas operation, as its involvement took its toll. Military expenditure further decreased to $52.7 billion.

The Belgrade nuclear base was completed in 1997, and in 1998, the first ICBMs were placed into the base. In 2001, the JNA tested the first Yugoslav-made nuclear rocket, the Tito I, named after Josip Broz Tito, at the Novaya Zemlya testing site in the Soviet Union.

In 1996, the independent government of Tajikistan collapsed, and made a bid for a re-entry into the Soviet Union, seeing how well the Soviet government held itself together after the Great Secession. The formation of the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan was finalized in 1997.

In the time period between 1997 up to now, the Soviet government worked mostly on restoring the country's culture, proclaiming all the national heroes of its republics, from the Russian tsar Peter the Great to the Kazakh khan Ablaï Khan, as Heroes of the Motherland. Orthodox and Muslim holidays once more received official recognition, and in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Crimea, Orthodox literature and studies was promoted.

In 2000, Dmitry Olchekov became president. An avid "hardliner Russian nationalist", and member of the Christian right, Olchekov introduced many Christian right laws. The Traditional Family Law introduced a minimum of four years in prison for homosexual activity, enacting mandatory conversion therapy for homosexuals. This triggered a large exodus of homosexuals out of the Soviet Union, and into Canada, a gay-friendly country.

Olchekov would often avoid all references to the term "Soviet" (associating that term with communists) in favor of "Russian". He often referred to the Soviet Union exclusively as "Russia" and even had "Russia" added to its list of legal names.

Olchekov also used the flag of the Russian SFSR in most photo shoots, and tried to avoid the flag of the USSR as much as possible.

Olchekov also attempted to install Christians as the heads of the governments of all the Soviet Republics, even the ones inhabited predominantly by Muslims, and encouraged impoverished Russians to settle in predominantly Muslim lands to outnumber the Muslims. He promoted Orthodox clergy to be the heads and leaders of these communities. An avid anti-Islam politician, Olchekov also attempted to have Ablaï Khan's national hero status removed.

In 2002, Chinese troops were amassing near the Chinese-Manchurian border. The Manchurian government, fearing a Chinese military takeover, looked to the Soviet Union for military aid. By this time, the Soviet military had begun to slightly recover, increasing its expenditure to $74.7 billion.

Dmitry Olchekov opposed the invasion of Iraq.

In 2005, fearing that Olchekov's policies would cause the Muslim-dominated republics to secede, the Council of the Supreme Soviet voted to impeach Olchekov, who was replaced by the more moderate Dmitry Medvedev.

Despite this, Olchekov remained largely popular in all of the Soviet Union's Slavic and predominantly Christian republics. He is considered one of the Soviet Union's most well-liked politicians, along with Mikhail Gorbachev and Vladimir Putin.

As life further deteriorated in many of the other ex-Soviet republics, they all made their bids to re-join the Soviet Union, something that was met with extreme hostility from NATO.

In 2004, the Moldovan band O-Zone solidified the Soviet Union's cultural ties with the west, with the boy band singing songs in both their native Romanian tongue, as well as Russian, becoming popular in both the Soviet Union and the west.

Second Cold War 2008-present
In 2008, Vladimir Putin was able to increase the expenditure by at least 20 billion USD. In addition, the Soviets emerged decisively victorious in the 2008 Soviet-Georgian War. In addition, Putin also increased funding for the navy and air force. Beginning with this war, the Soviet Union would once-more, begin to enter global politics and rise to prominence as a challenge for the western powers, once more - beginning what some historians and analysts refer as the Second Cold War. in 2011, the Soviets intervened in the Arab Spring, backing the established governments of Egypt, Libya and Syria against the Muslim Brotherhood. The Soviets received permission to carry out airstrikes, something heavily condemned by the West.

In 2012, the Great Protests preceded what would be, the Iraq War for Independence, toppling the pro-American regime in Iraq. Sayid Fulani, the leader of the resistance called for Soviet aid. The Soviets supplied the Iraqi nationalists with vehicles, weapons and even advanced missiles. The Soviets also supplied the nationalists with T-72b tanks and antiaircraft artillery to fight off the American aerial might. When the nationalists seized Baghdad, the Soviet Air Force airlifted troops into Iraq. Soviet General Gennady Bulganov warned American troops in Iraq that the Soviets and their Iraqi allies would continue the advance west. American forces retreated into North Syria. The Soviets provided armed protection for American diplomats stranded in Baghdad, and had them safely escorted to American forces stationed in eastern North Syria.

President McCain began rigorous anti-Soviet propaganda all over the United States.

Putin's economic reform had begun to resemble that of Nazi Germany, which fell halfway between a free-market economy and a command economy. There were even talks of returning the name "Socialist" into the USSR's official legal name, only it would be governed by a right-wing to center-right Socialist regime.

In 2014, amid political unrest in the Baltics, Putin sent troops into Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

After Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, he ordered the United States to become uninvolved in the Ukrainian Conflict, and stated that he would allow Putin and the Soviets to carry forth with their wishes, and let them handle Eastern Europe's conflicts, unless the United States was called upon. Therefore, Putin's invasion of Ukraine continue was free to continue west. In a surprise move, Putin did not invade western Ukraine, stating that he only cared about those that called upon the Soviet government.

During the Syrian Civil War, and its successor, the Levantine War, the Soviet Union supported the Bashar al-Assad regime. The Soviet Air Force conducted massive airstrikes in Damascus to help route anti-Assad and North Syrian forces. After both Operation Salma and the Ten-Day War, the Soviet government warned North Syria that it would begin attacking them if they didn't withdraw their forces from South Syria. The Assyrian government soon joined the conflict, sending contingent forces into South Syria.

The Soviet government enacted a massive recovery project, worth an estimated 3.1 billion USD to help Damascus recover from the war. Both military and civilian volunteers helped in this project. The Soviet Union's other allies, including Armenia, India, China and Vietnam also made large contributions, worth 342 million USD respectively.

By the end 2017, most of anti-Assad forces fled to North Syria or Turkey, or a NATO or NATO-friendly state. Muhsin el-Hussein further pursued them, causing most to flee to Turkey. This caused the Turkish North Syrian Riots, calling for El-Hussein's impeachment.

This had gained the Soviet Union as the most effective anti-terrorist force in the world, further causing embarrassment to the United States.

Despite the friendly modern relations, the Soviets and Chinese have been involved in the race for Central Asia. Soviet leaders have questioned Chinese presence in Central Asia. Prior to re-joining the Soviet Union, China had urged Kazakhstan to become part of China.

Karimov, had actually contemplated on either becoming a Soviet republic or Chinese autonomous province. Karimov  decided to move with the former. In 2011, the Uzbek government under Islam Karimov passed a referendum to re-join the Soviet Union. This coincided with a bill that re-introduced Russian as a co-official to Uzbek. This was met with fierce opposition, and a NATO and Western-backes failed attempt to depose Karimov ensued. In 2016, the referendum passed. Under Shavkat Miryoyev, Karimov's successor, the referendum was signed. In addition, Karimov's daughter, Gulnara, was removed from house arrest.

The Soviet Union also became involved in the Arab Spring, helping the established governments of Egypt, Libya and Syria (today South Syria) survive the wave of protestor attacks.

In 2018, Vladimir Putin approved the Anti-Traitor Law, requiring all oligarchs with a net worth of five billion USD or more to contribute 10% of their earnings towards the Soviet military. An angered Putin explained that this was meant to combat the political pick-pocketing. In addition, Putin also claimed it an act of responsibility to pay back the troops that protect the Motherland. Many had begun to suspect that this was beginning of a resurgence of communism in the Soviet Union, something that Putin vehemently rejected.

In Azerbaijan, the Soviets intervened in a civil war. This eventually led to its re-annexation by the Soviets. Fearing an incursion into their nations, Scandinavia sent forces into Finland near the Soviet borders.

Religion
Eastern Orthodoxy forms the majority of religion in the Soviet Union, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church, followed by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Moldovan Orthodox Church. There are also some Finnish Orthodox and Lutherans in the Karelian SSR. Orthodoxy predominates Soviet culture, and Orthodox holidays are considered national holidays in the Soviet Union, a stark contrast to its communist days. Even non-Christian republics, such as those predominated Over the decades after the Great Secession and the fall of the Communist Party, the Soviet government has consistently worked to promote, protect and revive the pre-1922 Orthodox culture of the country's Slavic republics. The Russian SFSR has promoted the historical culture of its Imperial Russia days. There was one point, when being Orthodox was required to be a Soviet general, as per a law introduced by avid pan-Orthodox Dmitry Olchekov. However, Dmitry Medvedev overturned the law.

Islam forms the second lagest denomination, and is the majority practiced in the Chechen, Kazakh, Uzbek and Tajik SSRs. Within the Russian SFSR, it is practiced in Dagestan and the Yakut Province in the Russian Far East. Like the Orthodox holidays, the Soviet government currently gives the Muslim-majority republics to declare Islamic holidays as state holidays. The Soviet government also recognizes the important heroes of its non-Slavic republics to be National Heroes and Figures of National and Historical Significance.

in the Russian Far East, there are practitioners of Buddhism, Shamanism and Animism.

Military
Despite the fall of communism, which put the Soviet Armed Forces through a period of dormancy and mediocracy, it still remains the "power in the East". Being one of the competing military powers of the world, the SAF boasts having the second largest overall military (second from China), with the world's largest land force. It currently contains the third-largest navy and second-largest air force. The Soviet Union currently has the world's third-largest military expenditure, at approximately $103.7 billion as of 2018, the world's third-largest military expenditure. Although having the image of a superpower, to which it is, military spending has been an issue for the Soviet Armed Forces. The January 2018 report had the Soviet Union's expenditure at $92.7 billion, due to pocketing.

In order to combat the Soviet Union's expenditure and pocketing problem, as of 2018, as per the Soviet Union's new "billionaire law", oligarchs in the Soviet Union with a net worth of $5 billion or more were required to contribute 10% of their earnings to the military.

In addition, much of the funding and strength is vested in the Soviet Army. There are many talks within the Soviet government of diminishing the size of the Soviet Army in favor of expanding the air force and navy.

Despite the expenditure issues, the Soviet military has been able to once-more, project itself globally, being able maintain Middle Eastern allies in South Syria, Iraq, Assyria and Southeast Asian allies in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia and as of 2018, the Philippines and major African allies in Angola, Ghana, Botswana and Ethiopia. This would project the Soviet military as being ranked second in terms of global power projection. With the Soviet Union's new and improved relations with China, it now has a major global power as an ally. Together, the loose alliance between the Soviet and Chinese militaries is often seen as NATO's biggest challenge.

The armed forces also contains the People's Army, the gendarmerie force of the Soviet Armed Forces. The People's Army is divided into two battalions: the Civil Battalion and the Home Battalion. The Civil Battalion is the gendarmarie force, and is organized like any military force. The Home Battalion consists of armed civilians, and functions as a partisan movement.

Army
The Soviet Army is currently the world's second-largest ground force, boasting a current count of 1.1 million active personnel with an additional 2,000,024 reserve personnel. As part of the army, the Soviet Union possesses the world's largest tank force, as well as the most artillery. In order to fill in the gap for its sub-par size air force (in comparison to the U.S. Air Force), the Soviet Army possesses the world's largest antiaircraft force. It is considered the world's best ground army, and has earned the Soviet Union as being the most defended land.

After the fall of communism, president Gorbachev changed the Soviet military doctrine, rather than conscripts, into a professional army. This greatly diminished the size of the Soviet Army. However, it showed very positive results, attested to by the Soviet Army's brilliant performance in the Yugoslav Wars, helping the JNA fight off the highly favored NATO forces.

Navy
The Soviet Union currently possesses the world's second largest navy, having three aircraft carriers and 382 ships in total. The Soviet Navy currently has active fleets in the Arctic, Baltic, Balkans, South China Sea, Sea of Okhostk and the Sea of Japan. Its Balkan and Baltic fleet is shared with fleets of the Yugoslav People's Navy and the Scandinavian Navy respectively.

The Soviet Navy also has the famous Navy Spetsnaz, comparable to the Navy SEALs of the U.S. Navy. In addition, the Soviet Navy also has its own aviation, possessing just over 1,304 aircraft.

Thhe Soviets currently operate three aircraft carriers, the Admiral Kuzsnetsov, Varyag and the Admiral Makarov.

Air Force
As of 2015, the Soviet Air Force is currently the world's second largest. Beginning in 2008, President Vladimir Putin began a rigorous attempt to update and expand the Soviet Union's aerial forces, seeing how rather behind it was against that of their American counterpart.

In 2008, the Soviet Air Force had about 2,200 aircraft, many of which were older and obsolete. By the time 2013 rolled around, the Soviet Air Force's strength had come to about 2,500 aircraft, this time most of them being battle-tested and updated.

By the time 2014 came, the Soviet Union had 3,100 aircraft. President John McCain attempted to scare the Soviets into submission by carrying out Operation Show Them Who We Are, carrying out a bombing campaign on Afghanistan and a field testing show.

This did anything but scare Putin and the Soviets, who simply continued expanding the air force, and carrying out Operation Let Us See, doing their own field testing shows. In 2015, the Soviet Air Force had increased to 4,024 aircraft.

The Soviet Air Force is on the verge of unveiling the Sukhoi Su-57, slated to be the world's top stealth bomber.

Nuclear Weapons
Mikhail Gorbachev refused to get rid of the nuclear stockpile, and instead, continued the competition with the west.

The Soviet Union continues to posses world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, and has the most nuclear warheads in the world, possessing over 12,002 nuclear warheads, with 6,200 on standby.

Politics
The politics of the Soviet Union is a democratic one. The President is the Head of State, and the Prime Minister is the Head of Government. The President and Prime Minister currently have no term limit. Both the President and Vice President are elected separately.

Currently, the United Soviet Party is the ruling party in the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while still existent and running, has lost its power and influence ever since the collapse of communism in 1989 and the Great Secession of 1992.

Sports
Football (soccer), basketball and hockey are currently the main sports in the Soviet Union.