Russia is Officially "Ruscist"

The Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament, adopted a resolution "On the Use of the Ideology of Ruscism by the Political Regime of the Russian Federation, Condemning the Principles and Practices of Ruscism as Totalitarian and Misanthropic."

The resolution says the war "showed to the entire world the true essence of Vladimir Putin’s political regime as a neo-imperial, totalitarian dictatorship that imitates the worst practices of the past and embodies the ideas of fascism and national socialism in a modern version of Russian fascism (ruscism)."

In a statement, the Ukrainian parliament appealed to the UN, the European Parliament, the OSCE, and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, as well as to the governments and parliaments of other countries to "support the condemnation of the ideology, policy, and practice of ruscism."

"Ruscism" is a neologism consisting of the words fascism, and Russia. It seems to date clear back to 1995, and was employed by breakaway Chechen leader Dzhokar Dudayev to describe Russia's military invasion of Chechnya as an expression of far-right ideology. Ruscism, he said, is

a variety of hatred ideology which is based on Great Russian chauvinism, spiritlessness and immorality. It differs from other forms of fascism, racism, and nationalism by a more extreme cruelty, both to man and to nature. It is based on the destruction of everything and everyone, the tactics of scorched earth. Ruscism is a schizophrenic variety of the world domination complex. This is a distinct version of slave psychology, it grows like a parasite on the fabricated history, occupied territories and oppressed peoples.

In Ukraine, the term "ruscism" became entrenched in 2014, after the occupation of Crimea and the beginning of the Donbas conflict, but it became known worldwide after Russia began its War on Ukraine in 2022. After that, the Ukrainian Wikipedia article about ruscism was translated into more than 20 languages, the term began to appear in international media, and was voiced in the speeches of politicians.

In particular, in April 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, said that the term would be used to describe Russia in history books. "Historically, their state will have a word in books and history that no one has invented and that everyone repeats both in Ukraine and in Europe: ruscism," Zelensky said.