Outside observers typically consider Russia’s large Muslim population to be a great challenge for the country and its leadership. In the United States and Europe, many focus overwhelmingly on Russia’s violent Islamic extremists — a small minority among the country’s Muslims — and on Moscow’s wars in Chechyna and its ongoing domestic terrorism problem. Nevertheless, President Vladimir Putin appears to have a different view and may see not only challenges but opportunities, including in Russia’s diplomacy in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

When thinking about the world’s largest Muslim countries, few people would consider Russia to be among them. Nevertheless, in 2010 the Russian Federation had more than 16 million Muslim residents, making its Muslim population the 13th-largest. Outside the greater Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, only China has a bigger Muslim population; however, because China’s overall population is so large, it represents only 1.8% of the total, compared with 11.7% in Russia. Thus, while Beijing can afford to marginalize its Muslim population, Moscow cannot.

Though the Kremlin has clearly granted a privileged place to Russia’s Orthodox Church among the country’s religions and religious institutions, Putin often acknowledges the country’s significant Muslim minority, including during a major 2013 speech focusing on Russia’s national identity, during which he said that “Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and other religions are an integral part of Russia’s identity, its historical heritage and the present-day lives of its citizens.” Importantly, Putin went on to argue, “It is clearly impossible to identify oneself only through one’s ethnicity or religion in such a large nation with a multi-ethnic population. … People must develop a civic identity on the basis of shared values, a patriotic consciousness, civic responsibility and solidarity, respect for the law and a sense of responsibility for their homeland’s fate, without losing touch with their ethnic or religious roots.”

Apparently responding in no small part to controversy in the West, in the months prior to the Olympic Games in Sochi, over Russia’s law imposing fines on individuals or organizations that present “propaganda” about homosexuality to minors, Putin has increasingly emphasized Russians’ shared moral values and to connect Russia’s “traditional” values to those in the Middle Eastern, Asian and other non-Western societies. “We can see how many of the Euro-Atlantic countries are actually rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that constitute the basis of Western civilization … and people are aggressively trying to export this model all over the world. I am convinced that this opens a direct path to degradation and primitivism, resulting in a profound demographic and moral crisis. … We consider it natural and right to defend these values​​.” While clearly identifying Russia as a largely Christian country, Putin is attempting to establish a dividing line between the shared values of believers in many religious traditions and those of the decadent secular West.