“We have gathered from around the world to discuss the principle and the future of self-determination in direct contradiction to those seeking a global solution to the people of the world,” he told the conference. “Much like the people of Catalonia, the people of Ireland, the people of Puerto Rico and many other peoples that are represented at this conference, we believe that the best people to govern Texas is the Texan people.”

Participants praised the so-called Brexit vote to take Britain out of the European Union as the new lodestar of those seeking self-determination.

The Kremlin paid a chunk of the cost for the gathering of about a dozen international groups. “We are not poor,” said Alexander V. Ionov, the president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, which organized the gathering for the second consecutive year.

It was impossible to determine what level of Kremlin support the conference attracted, and Mr. Ionov declined to elaborate beyond confirming the receipt of a presidential grant, but the external signs indicated nothing elaborate.

True, the conference moved from the President Hotel, a favorite of regional governors in town for Kremlin meetings, to the far fancier Ritz-Carlton, a few hundred yards from the Kremlin walls. It is the kind of place where John Kerry, the secretary of state, stays in Moscow. Yet the universal samovars dispensing tea at such gatherings took several hours to materialize. There was no lunch.