All peoples have the right to self-determination. Notwithstanding, the mainstream definition of people posits there are only two types of peoples: those already constituted as States and colonial peoples inhabiting non-self-governing territories. Under this definition, peoples are colonial when separated by sea from their metropolis. Far from neutral, this definition has historically advantaged land powers, e. g., China, the United States, and Russia/The Soviet Union (USSR), since the territories they conquered and annexed never underwent a decolonisation process. On the one hand, this article analyses the situation of the former constitutive USSR republics to show they should have been characterised as colonies under international law. Accordingly, this article reviews the main approaches relating to self-determination and decolonisation and demonstrates that, based on existing United Nations (UN) legal instruments and State practice, land-connected territories could also be considered colonies since the decisive criterion remains the domination of a people over another people. Indeed, most Soviet peoples were conquered by Tsarist Russia, and, to varying degrees, all had the attributes of colonies. This double standard exemplifies how far off mainstream conceptualisations of self-determination are. For instance, English, French, or Portuguese colonies achieved independence with the help of the UN, while Central Asian Soviet peoples could not. On the other hand, as the international community, save for certain countries, failed to recognise former Soviet republics were colonies, the article builds on the practice of their peoples to evince the scope of self-determination beyond decolonisation. Indeed, at the moment of becoming independent, formerly communist peoples justified their accession to independence based on the right of peoples to self-determination. In turn, many States recognised self-determination was at stake during the 1990s wave of independence, which prompted international recognition. All in all, this article constitutes a call for coherence vis-à-vis self-determination, seeing that peoples are the beneficiaries of the right to self-determination. The international community must be careful not to let States instrumentalise self-determination and take away this right from peoples. Russia’s instrumentalisation of self-determination in Crimea is a tragic reminder of the continuing relevance of such a call.