The Russian government and state-affiliated private mercenary companies are forcing international students to fight in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Wagnerites Turn International Students into Cannon Fodder
Ararat OsipianRussia’s Paramilitarization and Its Consequences
Marlene Laruelle and Richard Arnold
As much as a quarter of Russian forces in Ukraine are estimated to come from paramilitary organizations. Should elite infighting break out into the open, or Russia palpably lose the “Special Military Operation,” this mass paramilitarization could have enormous ramifications.
Continue reading...Exodus: Russian Repression and Social “Movement”
Laura A. Henry, Valerie Sperling and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom
In past research, we identified several broad trends in Russian civil society prior to the war, which we labeled enduring, evaporating, and adapting forms of activism. These terms captured, respectively, organizational types that had persisted since the 1990s, those unable to survive, and those that adapted to Russia’s increasingly repressive environment. Here we examine a new trend in Russian civil society: escaping.
Continue reading...Employee of the State, Enemy of the State: Teaching English in Moscow
A. Austin Garey
I taught English as a Foreign Language in Moscow between 2019 and 2022, through mass student protests, increasing restrictions on freedom of speech, and, finally, a total break with Western institutions after February of last year. I taught a chilling set of classes only hours after Russia began bombing Kyiv. And as the government cracked down on connections with perceived enemies of the state, banned Facebook, Instagram, and the BBC, my students did not know how they should relate to me—the “enemy”—nor I them.
Continue reading...Unexpected Telegram: The Assassination of a Pro-Kremlin Blogger
Michael Gorham
Tatarsky’s assassination signals that the internet and social networks are now far more than either a haven for anti-Putin oppositional voices or a dark space for Kremlin trolls.
Continue reading...Prosperity or War? “Peace” as a Political Tool in Today’s Hungary
Szinan Radi
Since the outbreak of the war, the Hungarian government has consistently objected to providing military aid to Ukraine to help the country defend itself from its Eastern aggressor. Hungary has also striven to use its power as an EU member state to minimize the breadth and effect of sanctions imposed on Russia by the EU. The Hungarian government has made it clear that rather than arms, only “peace” can bring an end to the conflict.
Continue reading...Vladimir Putin: War Criminal
Peter Rutland
In charging the Russian leader, the ICC becomes the latest international institution to go public with well-documented evidence of his culpability for the war against Ukraine.
Continue reading...When Russia’s Window on the World Slammed Shut: Reminiscences of an American Researcher, Part II
Amanda Murphy
As I walked by the Ploshchad’ Vosstaniia metro stop, across from the Moscow Railway Station, a pop-up protest streamed past me, chanting: “Ukraine is not our enemy” and “No to war!” Mostly, these were young men and women who reminded me of my students.
Continue reading...When Russia’s Window on the World Slammed Shut: Reminiscences of an American Researcher, Part I
Amanda Murphy
Cannons rang out and explosions shook the building, interrupting the singing onstage. What was going on? Was the war really here? No. It was just the salute to commemorate February 23 and the Defenders of the Fatherland. No worries.
Continue reading...On the First Anniversary of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
The Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of RussiaToday marks one year since Russia began its illegal and immoral military invasion of Ukraine. We continue to be horrified at the wanton destruction and loss of life brought about by Russia’s war on its neighbor. In lieu of yet another attempt to make sense of the situation, we are opting not to publish any content on the Jordan Center Blog today.
Continue reading...One Year Ago: Helen Chervits’ Eyewitness Report from Kyiv
Helen Chervits
It makes sense that politicians around the world are afraid of Putin. But Ukrainians are living in immediate fear for their lives right now. And we understand firsthand that Putin will not stop with Ukraine if the world permits it. The citizens of many more countries will be in immediate danger and this disaster will continue. Putin must be stopped by any means necessary.
Continue reading...One Year Ago: Russia’s War on the Nonhuman
Anastassiya Andrianova
In April 2022, I reflected on the environmental impact of the war in Ukraine by reimagining it through Lesia Ukraïnka’s fairy-drama “Forest Song.” On the verge of the invasion’s one-year anniversary, my evaluation of its environmental consequences is far more severe.
Continue reading...One Year Ago: Historian Victoria Smolkin Assesses Putin’s Claim that Modern-Day Ukraine is a “Gift” from the Bolsheviks
Victoria Smolkin
As a historian, what struck me most about the historical narrative of Vladimir Putin’s speech was not only what “historical facts”—to borrow his terminology—Putin used, but also what he left out.
Continue reading...One Year Ago: Professor Natalia Levina Speaks on Ukraine at NYU
Natalia LevinaI grew up in Kharkiv. Countless memories are tied to the main city square, which has now been bombed. Almost a year ago, I learned that my own childhood home was also bombed from the air and burned to the ground.
Continue reading...Always Alone? Russian Economic Isolation in Historical Perspective
Marvin Suesse
Self-sufficiency now is the Putin’s regime’s watchword. Nonetheless, as in Soviet times, today’s isolation is tempered in ways that belie the trope of a walled “Fortress Russia.”
Continue reading...Anti-Hegemonic Code-Switching: The Case of Odesa Poet Boris Khersonskii, Part III
Dirk Uffelmann
Taken together, Khersonskii’s posts imagine a future multilingual society that recognizes the civic obligation of understanding and speaking Ukrainian. His own bilingualism, meanwhile, helps mitigate language conflict by modeling flexibility within individual linguistic practice.
Continue reading...Anti-Hegemonic Code-Switching: The Case of Odesa Poet Boris Khersonskii, Part II
Dirk Uffelmann
Immediately after Euromaidan, Khersonskii began to reflect on his own precarious position as a Russophone patriot of Ukraine who had published his poetry primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Continue reading...Anti-Hegemonic Code-Switching: The Case of Odesa Poet Boris Khersonskii, Part I
Dirk Uffelmann
In 2018, Boris Khersonskii, Ukraine’s most famous Russian-language poet, wrote on Facebook—in Ukrainian: “My credo is: in Odesa, obstruct the Russian language gently, but oppose boorishness on the part of Russian cultural stars decisively. I write this as a mostly Russophone person.” What triggered this turn against Russian by one of its most sophisticated artistic users? Is the shift to Ukrainian in Khersonskii’s linguistic practice consistent and irreversible? And, if a leading Russophone poets takes such a dim view of the language, can the end of Russian-language literature in what the Russian state arrogantly calls its “near abroad” be far behind?
Continue reading...Ukrainian Russophonia: Beyond the “Russian World” Paradigm
Marco Puleri
As the famous Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov pointed out in a June article for “The New Statesman,” the atrocities of recent months have made it quite likely that Russian will cease to exist as a language of culture in Ukraine.
Continue reading...Russia’s War on Ukrainian Farms
Susanne Wengle and Vitalii Dankevych
The Russian military is deliberately targeting key farming-related assets and facilities with the aim of inflicting short- and long-term harm. Moreover, by blockading the Black and Azov seas, Russia controls how much Ukrainian grain, oilseeds and other food commodities reach global markets.
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