Official website of the President of Russia

Commissions and Councils   /

The participants included Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District Yury Chaika, Head of the Federal Agency for Ethnic Affairs Igor Barinov, Ataman of the All-Russian Cossack Society Nikolai Doluda, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Viktor Vodolatsky, Chairman of the Synodal Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church for Cooperation with the Cossacks, Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol and Nevinnomyssk.

In order to comply with sanitary and epidemiological requirements caused by an increase in the number of cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), some of the participants joined the meeting via videoconference. More than 200 people from 85 Russian regions also attended, including heads of working groups on Cossack affairs at state authorities in the regions, and atamans of Cossack societies and public associations.

Chairman of the Council for Cossack Affairs Anatoly Seryshev noted in his report that in the context of the pandemic in 2020, cooperative volunteering had rallied all representatives of the Cossacks, and this consolidation drive would continue in the future. “Our goal is to revive a joint, strong social entity capable of self-development and self-government on the basis of mutual assistance,” the Aide to the President said.

The participants summed up some of the results of the implementation of the Strategy for Developing State Policy in Respect to Russian Cossacks until 2020 and proposed new approaches towards coordinating action to implement the Strategy for Developing State Policy in Respect to Russian Cossacks for 2021–2030. The results of the Russian Cossacks’ public service and patriotic education of the younger generation in the spirit of Cossack traditions were also considered.

Several important tasks to be handled in 2021 were highlighted. They include drafting a bill concerning the Russian Cossacks; consolidation of Cossack societies and public associations; implementation of measures to attract youth to Cossack organisations; and forming a personnel reserve for the All-Russian Cossack Society.

Keynote reports on the results of their organisations' activity in 2020 were delivered by Nikolai Dyakonov, Supreme Ataman of the Union of Cossack Warriors of Russia and Abroad, and Pavel Zadorozhny, Supreme Ataman of the Union of Cossacks.

Relevant decisions were made at the end of the meeting.