Moscow has tied the national compatriot identity inseparably to its own Russian-speaking diaspora. With the recent notion of military crises in the Russian territorial neighbourhood, geopolitical fears have grown in both the Baltics and Central Asia. Still, the question of how Moscow-friendly and secessionist the Russophone minorities in both regions are, remains largely unanswered.
This article is focusing on the comparison of two regional actors in the post-Soviet nationalisation process by comparing the language policies of Estonia and Kazakhstan since their independence from the USSR.