Well I must say it's always a bit jarring coming to this site and learning about historical minorities that gone today, as I recognize the Ajam, Circassian, Tatar and Turkmen only.
Add in those slavs from Circassia would just to other parts of the Russian empire like Abkhazia and begin attacking and raiding on their own with or without Russian support.
After all one merely needs to look at the actual Circassian nationalists still fleeing into the Ottoman empire to see the locals won't just submit after the genocide.
So would need the caucus's, Crimea, bits of Ukraine, and Circassia for it to be sustainable, and that would A a level of ethnic cleansing comparable to WW2, B I'm sure the Russian empire loyalists and Slav nationalists would sooner bit off one of their arms than accept losing all that and would need to break the Russian empire for them to accept it.
Besides that, I'm pretty sure you can't ''merely'' just do as Russia if they lost Crimea would dam the rivers leading into it to spite the Ottomans.both are impossible really. Crimea would need to see Ethnic cleansing of the highest order to make Tatars a majority from Slavs and Circassia would need one of the largest genocides in history to make it circassian majority again. Frankly put both regions are going to remain slavic majority, which means they're going to want to remain in a slavic state (which in the absence of Ukraine is simply Russia). And the new democratic government in the OE will have little appetite for ethnic cleansing and genocide, and especially not the OE's population.
Add in those slavs from Circassia would just to other parts of the Russian empire like Abkhazia and begin attacking and raiding on their own with or without Russian support.
After all one merely needs to look at the actual Circassian nationalists still fleeing into the Ottoman empire to see the locals won't just submit after the genocide.
So would need the caucus's, Crimea, bits of Ukraine, and Circassia for it to be sustainable, and that would A a level of ethnic cleansing comparable to WW2, B I'm sure the Russian empire loyalists and Slav nationalists would sooner bit off one of their arms than accept losing all that and would need to break the Russian empire for them to accept it.