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The Cossacks had to wait for Gorbachev’s perestroika and the fall of communism to make a glorious comeback. In 1992 Yeltsin issued Decree 632 on the rehabilitation of the Cossacks, followed, in July 1994, by Decree 1389, establishing a Council for Cossack Affairs. At the end of 1994 Yeltsin went still further, supporting a new law on Cossacks that granted them the status of an archipelago state within Russia, consisting of twelve Federal Cossack Regions, each of which corresponded with a Cossack host.^[7] This Cossack archipelago state was headed by a Council of Atamans (Cossack leaders), which was responsible not to the government, but to the president—mirroring the historical special relationship with the tsar.^[8] Already in the 1990s the Cossacks began to be used as vigilantes, though only locally. In 1995 Mark Galeotti wrote:

Like the Tsars, today’s Russian leaders have turned to the Cossacks for internal and external security. Since 1990, Cossack vigilantes have patrolled the streets of many Russian cities, armed with clubs, sabres and nagaykas (traditional whips). The regional administration in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar went further, in 1992 hiring armed Cossack units to patrol the countryside on horseback and in armoured vehicles . . . . The section on law enforcement in the Law on Cossacks—drafted by the Interior Ministry—formalises this role, establishing the dubious precedent of giving full police powers of search and arrest to untrained, armed vigilantes responsible to their elders rather than the authorities.^[9]

Yeltsin’s reforms led also to the creation of Cossack regiments, and some Cossack units were formed within the Border Troops.^[10] Cossacks also got the right to set up security companies, and in 1997 several of these companies were working for the Moscow city government.^[11] However, the rehabilitation of the Cossacks under Yeltsin still remained uncompleted, and their new status was only a pale reflection of their privileged position in the former tsarist Empire. Their real chance, therefore, came with the arrival of Vladimir Putin. The new president was highly appreciative of the Cossacks. He attached great importance to this group and wanted to restore the Cossacks to their traditional function of pillars of the regime. In 2003 he appointed Gennady Troshev, a Cossack general who had served as commander of the military operations in Chechnya, as special adviser for Cossack Affairs in his presidential administration. In 2005 Putin signed the bill “On the State Service of the Russian Cossacks,” which offered the Cossacks privileged entry to the state service.^[12] Draft-age Cossacks would “gain the right to serve in traditional Cossack military units, as well as frontier and internal forces.”^[13] Lev Ponomaryov, head of the NGO “For Human Rights” did not conceal his concern. “If they want to guard the borders,” he said, “let them do this . . . . [However], it is alarming that they may be given the right to maintain law and order within these borders. Experience shows that the Cossacks have their own interpretation of law and order.”^[14] But the Cossacks were satisfied. They showed their gratitude by granting Putin the title of ataman—Cossack colonel—a title previously reserved for the Russian tsars. Putin himself became the highest Cossack leader. In 2005 a Cossack regiment was founded in the army together with Cossack military schools where pupils—ages seven to seventeen—attend classes in army fatigues. The curriculum includes military tactics, patriotism, and moral (i.e., Orthodox) education. In 2013 there existed thirty such Cossack schools in the Russian Federation.^[15] The southern town of Krasnodar, the centre of the Don Cossacks host, became a testing ground for the new Cossack activities. In February 2012, during the presidential election campaign, Putin once more stressed the importance of the Cossacks in an article in Izvestia: