"This book examines the evolution of Russia's security policy under Putin in the 21st century, using a social-constructivist approach. This book investigates the way in which Russia's official discourse under the regime of Vladimir Putin on state identity and security priorities has evolved. In so doing, it evaluates the way that this evolving relationship between state identity and security narratives framed the construction of individual security policies, and how, in turn, individual issues can impact on the meta-narratives of state and security identity. To this end, the issue of Chechnya is examined as a case study. By analysing official discourse on Chechnya as a security issue, the book traces how an individual security issue is both shaped by and shapes Russia's wider discourses of the state identity and security. In so doing, this study has wider implications for how we read Russia as a security actor through an approach that emphasises the importance of taking into account its security culture, the interconnection between internal/external security priorities and the dramatic changes that have taken place in Russia's conceptions of itself, national and security priorities and conceptualisation of key security issues, in this case Chechnya. These aspects of Russia's security culture remain somewhat of a neglected area of research, but, as argued in this book, offer structuring and framing implications for how we understand Russia's position towards security issues, and perhaps those of rising powers more broadly"--