PONARS Eurasia

🚨 Exciting news! Our latest eBook has arrived! 📚 Dive deep into the shifting dynamics across Eurasia in the fallout of the war in Ukraine. From managing the effects of international sanctions to handling waves of Russian emigres, explore the complex aftermath. 🌍📖

Read it here: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/policy-memos-list/ebooks/

Join us next week for PONARS Strategic Conversations! RSVP here: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/events/
Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has upended its relations with neighbors in the region. Over the last several decades, countries across Eurasia have varied widely in how they have engaged with Moscow, with some advancing more favorable views (both at the elite and the societal levels), while others remaining highly critical of Russia's often domineering approach. But, now in its third year, the war in Ukraine has forced every country to reevaluate its relationship with Russia. The challenges are many, from managing the effect of international sanctions (and Russia's attempts to evade them), handling waves of Russian emigres and the societal tensions they create, and assessing new threats to their own sovereignty in light of Russia's aggression. This eBook shifts the focus from Russia to the other countries in the Eurasia region and gives the floor to experts on and from these societies to analyze the broader fallout of the war in Ukraine.

The PONARS Online Spring Conference is one week away. Have you registered yet? Join us for free and from anywhere for this entirely virtual line-up of presentations on comparative or domestic politics, society, and economics related to the region, both connected to and beyond Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.

More information and RSVP here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScCFEW8flMshckCyWgp2zha1qwpVH5__V-Vs7b-GYCZZ3Hc1A/viewform

Thank you to all who joined us last night for the launch of PONARS's Strategic Conversations event series. The recording for the talk, featuring Olga Oliker and Samuel Charap is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbmC4kolk84

Be sure to join our mailing list to stay up-to-date on upcoming events, including future editions of Strategic Conversations!

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Join us next week for the launch of a new event series: PONARS Strategic Conversations. Strategic Conversations will be a series of genuine conversations on pressing topics in Eurasian security. The first edition features Olga Oliker and Samuel Charap addressing how priorities, perceptions, and preferences have changed in the two years since the full-scale invasion.

What does a protracted war look like for both Ukraine and Russia? Is a cease-fire possible, and if so what would it look like? What do defeat and victory mean for each country? How are Ukrainian politics and society dealing with the difficulties of securing more solid Western support? Join us for a discussion on these points and more by RSVPing here: https://forms.gle/T4SYg4Jt2K4um122A

How can we understand and interpret different Russian constituencies' reactions to the war in Ukraine? This is the central question addressed in the latest PONARS Online Academy video "Russian Society in Wartime."

View it now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdhXGB6go0&list=PLnYhtecpqY0gQ0kwMzY4LVQ5I8Veyf37T&index=25

Our Online Academy videos provide succinct overviews of research and scholarship into Russia and Eurasia. Each video is accompanied by a list of additional sources for those who would like to learn more about the specific topics addressed. Visit our website for the full collection: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/online-academy/

Russian Society In Wartime How can we understand Russians' expressions of support for or opposition to the war under Putin? PONARS Eurasia's newest Online Academy video addresses these...

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: The Carlson-Putin Interview, or the Limits of Dialogue between the Western Far Right and Russia.

Marlene Laruelle and John Chrobak catalog the reactions within the western far right to Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin. Read more here: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-carlson-putin-interview/

https://www.ponarseurasia.org/the-carlson-putin-interview/

The Carlson-Putin Interview, or the Limits of Dialogue between the Western Far Right and Russia – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 881 (PDf) Former Fox anchor Tucker Carlson is a well-known figure representing the MAGA realm, embodying many of the successes of Trumpism and the provocative rhetorical style of the Western far right more globally. On foreign policy issues, Carlson has la...

Thank you to all who joined yesterday's talk with Marat Iliyasov on "Chechen Demographic Growth as an Indicator of Unresolved Conflict."

If you missed it, you can now view the recording here:

New Voices on Eurasia with Marat Iliyasov Marat Iliyasov on Chechen Demographic Growth as an Indicator of Unresolved ConflictThis talk was originally recorded at the Elliott School of International A...

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Will Russian Voters Abroad Support Putin in the Upcoming Presidential Election?: Lessons from the 2018 Russian Presidential Election

Eugene Huskey looks at the Russian diaspora's voting behavior in 2018 for insight on what to expect in this year's election. Read the full memo here:

Will Russian Voters Abroad Support Putin in the Upcoming Presidential Election?: Lessons from the 2018 Russian Presidential Election – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 880 (pdf) Since the 1990s, Russian citizens living abroad have been able to vote in Russian elections for president and parliament as well as in constitutional referendums. With the large-scale exodus of Russians following the full-scale invasion of Ukrain...

Join us next week for another New Voices on Eurasia talk! Marat Iliyasov will present on "Chechen Demographic Growth as an Indicator of Unresolved Conflict." Register here to secure your spot: https://forms.gle/DgKRcYFGBmf76biv8

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Grassroots Urban Activism and the Use of Digital Platforms in Russia

Vsevolod Bederson, Liubov Chernysheva, and Andrei Semenov explore how digital tools affect activism in Russia. Read more:

Grassroots Urban Activism and the Use of Digital Platforms in Russia – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 879 (pdf) Citizens worldwide increasingly rely on information and communication technologies to organize themselves and push for social changes. Place-based collective actions are no exception: across continents and political regimes, citizens use digital....

Друзі, серія щотижневих зустрічей «Громадянське суспільство та українська стійкість» від PONARS Eurasia, University of Colorado Boulder та Isar Ednannia повертається! 🔥
🇺🇸 version is below

Анонсуємо першу онлайн дискусію на тему «Розвіюємо міфи про Україну»:
⏰ П'ятниця, 1 березня, 19:00 (за київським часом)

Спікери:
• Олексій Гарань, науковий директор Фонду «Демократичні ініціативи імені Ілька Кучеріва», професор Києво-Могилянської академії, член PONARS Eurasia;
• Пітер Дікінсон, видавець журналу «Бізнес Україна» та редактор служби UkraineAlert Atlantic Council.
Модератор: Роман Олексенко.

📌 Реєстрація: https://bit.ly/slavaukraini2024
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🇺🇸

Please join us at 12pm EST (7pm Ukraine time) on Friday, March 1 for our discussion “Dispelling the Myths about Ukraine”.

With this webinar we are launching our spring season of discussions on the role of Ukraine’s civil society in resisting the aggressor. This initiative is supported by PONARS Eurasia and ISAR Ednannia.
Speakers:
• Olexiy Haran, DIF, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Professor, member of PONARS Eurasia;
• Peter Dickinson, editor of the UkraineAlert blog at the Eurasia Center and the publisher of Business Ukraine and Lviv Today magazines and Atlantic Council expert.
Moderator: Roman Oleksenko.

📌 Register here: https://bit.ly/slavaukraini2024

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Repurposing Tradition to Justify the War in Ukraine
Marat Iliyasov, Valeria Umanets, Aleksandra Garmazhapova, and Yasin Hakim catalog the narratives used to justify the war to Russia's Chechen, Buryat, and Tatar communities, as well as the largely ethnic Russian populaiton in Perm. Read it now at the link below

Repurposing Tradition to Justify the War in Ukraine – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 878 (PDF) Since February 2022, the Russian authorities have used diverse strategies to justify the country’s invasion of Ukraine and foster public support. These strategies are designed to support their overarching narrative of the war as a special milit...

Does Russia stand to benefit from climate change?

Read this synopsis of the PONARS "Russia in a Changing Climate" Task Force's report in WIREs Climate Change.

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🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Categorizing Russian Atrocity Crimes in Ukraine: Judicial Accountability and Implications Ahead

Kristina Hook examines the judicial, research, and social implications of Russian crimes in Ukraine. Read more here:

Categorizing Russian Atrocity Crimes in Ukraine: Judicial Accountability and Implications Ahead – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit PONARS Policy memo no. 877 (PDF) One year into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan summarized the scope and scale of the devastation by stating, “Ukraine is a crime scene.” From violence like killing, r**e, and tortur...

Look for the latest book from Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov: Non-Democratic Federalism and Decentralization in Post-Soviet States. In it, the authors examine how the institutions of federalism and decentralization contributed or, on the contrary, hindered the consolidation of personalist regimes. While the leaders in Russia, and Kazakhstan have exploited federalism to preserve power, in Ukraine, the decentralization prevented consolidation of authoritarianism by supporting political pluralism. The authors look at the cases of the COVID-19 and the Russian war against Ukraine. The book advances our understanding of how federalism and decentralization intersect with non-democratic practices.

Non-Democratic Federalism and Decentralization in Post-Soviet States This book challenges the common perception of authoritarian regimes as incompatible with federalism and decentralization. It examines how the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan have managed to exploit federalism and decentralization as useful instruments to help them preserve control, avoid....

Thank you to all who tuned into yesterdays edition of New Voices on Eurasia! In case you missed it, Anastasiia Vlasenko's talk "The Electoral Effects of Decentralization: Evidence from Ukraine" is available now on our YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in1jSdY9abU

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Post-Authoritarian Russia Will Need Transitional Justice: Evidence from In-Depth Interviews with Russian Wartime Migrants

Mikhail Turchenko writes that Russian migrants' feel that transitional justice and accountability is necessary in the wake of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Post-Authoritarian Russia Will Need Transitional Justice: Evidence from In-Depth Interviews with Russian Wartime Migrants – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit PONARS Policy Memo no. 876 (PDF) Successful regime change demands that Russians build a clear program of transitional justice (TJ), defined as a set of policies for dealing with former authoritarian elites and their collaborators. The goals behind a TJ program would be to solidi...

Don't miss our next installment of New Voices on Eurasia, happening Tuesday, February 13th. We'll be hearing from Anastasiia Vlasenko on how decentralization reform in Ukraine effected voter turnout and electoral results. RSVP below to join:

https://forms.gle/RvuhvSU38N6GNtjx8

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: When Climate Crisis Meets Bad Governance: Lessons from Georgia in 2023

Irena Gonashvili and Bidzina Lebanidze warn that Georgia must improve its governance practices to withstand instability from climate change and natural disasters.

When Climate Crisis Meets Bad Governance: Lessons from Georgia in 2023 – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit The year 2023 was a challenging one for Georgia. In August, the Black Sea country was shaken by a dramatic landslide in the mountainous resort of Shovi, which left at least 32 dead and one missing. In September, landslides and floods hit the region of Guria in Western Georgia, k...

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Russia’s Changing Latin America Strategy

Ivan U. Klyszcz examines how Russia is attempting to consolidate its relationships in Latin America, and the implications of this development for the US and Europe.

Russia’s Changing Latin America Strategy – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 875 (PDF) Albeit overshadowed by Yevgeny Prigozhin’s shocking dash to Moscow, on June 23, 2023, The Insider published a report claiming that Russia was reopening its listening station in Lourdes, Cuba. Closed by Putin himself in 2001, the station played ...

🚨 New PONARS Policy Memo: Filtering the News: Why Russians Prefer Propaganda and Shield Themselves from Independent Reporting

Anton Shirikov draws on recent survey results to interpret the public's response to Kremlin propaganda. Read the full piece below:

Filtering the News: Why Russians Prefer Propaganda and Shield Themselves from Independent Reporting – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit PONARS Policy Memo no. 873 (PDF) How do the lies of Russian propaganda work? In recent years, Kremlin-controlled media have promoted thousands of fabricated stories, including some completely absurd narratives—e.g., about “Nazis” in Kyiv or CIA bioweapons labs across Ukrai...

Thank you to all who joined us yesterday for the latest installment of New Voices on Eurasia! If you missed watching it live, Emma Mateo's recorded talk is now available here:

New Voices on Eurasia with Emma Mateo Emma Mateo presents on Why Ukraine's Civilians are Integral to the War Effort: Understanding the Roles and Motivations of Wartime Civilian ActorsOriginally r...

War, the Putin Regime, and Russian Public Opinion: This half-day, in-person conference will bring together leading specialists on public opinion in Russia to discuss what we know and do not know about public opinion in Russia today. Click below for a detailed schedule and to RSVP:

Russian Public Opinion Conference January 19th, 2024 9:00 am-1:30 pm Elliott School of International Affairs 1957 E St NW Event Description: This half-day, in-person conference will bring together leading specialists on public opinion in Russia to discuss what we know and do not know about public opinion in Russia today. Among the t...

🚨 New PONARS Policy Memo: Cossacks as a Case Study of Russia’s Paramilitarization by Richard Arnold

How do the registered Russian Cossacks illustrate ongoing paramilitarization? Read the memo here for more:

Cossacks as a Case Study of Russia’s Paramilitarization – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit PONARS Policy Memo no. 870 (PDF) Since the Wagner mutiny of June 2023, the role of paramilitaries in Russia has become a subject of intense scrutiny.  Not only do such groups represent a diminution of the state’s monopoly on violence—and so raise the possibility of civil wa...

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: "Ramzan Kadyrov: Between Putin’s Loyal Praetorian Guard and Devoted Servant of the Chechen People" by Jean-François Ratelle and Marat Iliyasov.

How and why has Kadyrov's messaging on the war in Ukraine evolved? What does this say about his future under the Putin regime?

Read the full memo here for more:

Ramzan Kadyrov: Between Putin’s Loyal Praetorian Guard and Devoted Servant of the Chechen People – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit PONARS Policy Memo No. 869 (PDF) In this policy memo, we analyze the ways in which Ramzan Kadyrov has instrumentalized Russia’s successes and failures in the war in Ukraine for his own political benefit. We center our analysis on his Telegram channel, “Kadyrov_95,” examini...

Read the latest PONARS Policy Memo "In Their Own Voice: Supporting Russia’s Wartime Migrants."

Authors Emil Kamalov, Veronika Kostenko, Andrei Semenov, Ivetta Sergeeva, Regina Smyth, Mikhail Turchenko, and Margarita Zavadskaya draw on interviews and surveys to propose policies to support Russian migrants and their host countries.

In Their Own Voice: Supporting Russia’s Wartime Migrants – PONARS Eurasia ЧВК с нагайкой. Казаков юга России предложили вооружать и привлекать к теробороне View

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Attitudes toward Russia’s War on Ukraine in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan by Hannah Chapman and Raushan Zhandayeva.

How does the public in Central Asia view Russia’s war against Ukraine? The authors use survey data from Central Asia Barometer to explore the impact of ethnic identity, language, and media usage on pro-Russian attitudes.

Read the full memo here:

Attitudes toward Russia’s War on Ukraine in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit ponars policy memo no. 867 (pdf) In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Kyrgyzstan for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States. This was Putin’s first known trip abroad since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest in March...

Venezuela may be looking to Russia’s example -- and even hoping for Russian support -- as it threatens Guyana’s sovereignty, Ivan U. Klyszcz writes

Venezuela’s Guyana intentions Is Caracas bluffing? Or are Maduro’s recent moves meant to signal intent, namely, to take Essequibo by force?

🚨New PONARS Policy Memo: Unfulfillable Promise: Mediation Efforts in the Russian-Ukrainian War Since 2014 by Tetyana Malyarenko and Stefan Wolff.

In Part I one of a two-part series, the authors explore why mediation from 2014-2022 failed to prevent the full-scale invasion of 2022. Read the full memo here, and look out for Part II soon.

Unfulfillable Promise: Mediation Efforts in the Russian-Ukrainian War Since 2014 – PONARS Eurasia Image license/credit Part 1. The Gray-Zone ConflictThis memo is the first in a two-part assessment of the effectiveness of mediation in the Russian-Ukrainian war during its gray-zone (2014-2022) and conventional (2022-present) stages. There have been intensive and varied mediation initiatives betwee...