The Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya), more officially known as Russia (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya), is a country situated in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with the European Union (EU), the Federation of Arab Republics (FAR), the People's Republic of China (PRC), Mongolia, and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the United States of America by the Bering Strait. At 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,538 square miles), the Russian Federation is the second largest country in the world by total area, covering more than one-sixth of the Earth's inhabited land area, only surpassed by the Federation of the Americas. Russia is also the fifth largest country in the world by population with over 360 million people. Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms.
The nation's history began with that of the East Slavs, who emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion of Rus and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde, and came to dominate the cultural and political legacy of Kievan Rus'. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union, the world's first constitutionally socialist state and a recognized superpower, which played a decisive role in the Allied Powers victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite, and the first man in space. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian SFSR reconstituted itself as the Russian Federation and is recognized as the continuing legal personality of the Union state.
In the wake of multiple conflicts that occured in the Middle East that culminated in the Tel Aviv War in the early 2010s, which devastated the entire region and triggered a global energy crisis. While it crippled First World countries around the globe like the United States and the European Union, the oil-rich South American nations of Brazil, Venezuela, and Chile united to form the Federation of the Americas in order to monopolize their own resources and consolidate power over their neighbors. Russia and the Federation of the Americas became the world's two largest producers of fossil fuels as well as exporters of oil and natural gas, and emerged as global superpowers in the mid-2010s. On 1 January 2015, Russia, together with Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan formed the Eurasian Union (EaU), a new Russian-led political, economic and military union.
The Eurasian Union became the world's fifth largest economy, and fought the European Union in a new Cold War for dominance over the Eurasian continent, and formed a new military alliance with the People's Republic of China and the Federation of the Americas. In 2018, the Eurasian Union invaded the European Union, starting the European War, at the same time as the Federation War began when the Federation of the Americas invaded the United States, a war that lasted for almost two decades. Both wars later became part of World War III. The Eurasian Union invaded and conquered much of Central and Eastern Europe until 2030, when the EU defeated the Russian military forces and they were driven back to its pre-war borders, as the United States finally drived back the Federation to its pre-war borders. The EU invasion of the Russian Federation began in 2033 when 1.5 million EU troops invaded Russia. The capital city of Moscow was captured by the EU in 2039, three years after the Federation War in the Americas ended.
The Russian economy is the fifth largest national economy in the world by both nominal GDP and by purchasing power parity (PPP), and the largest on the European continent. Russia's extensive reserves of energy resources, the largest in the world, have made it the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Russia is a recognized superpower and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Community, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the World Trade Organisation, and is the leading member state of the Eurasian Union.