Getting About in Wartime
It is hard to stay put during a war for several reasons. In wartime, even people with limited mobility, if they want to survive, are forced to become "mobile.”
Loyal Moscow, Restless Russia
Today, dissatisfaction with the war, frustration with the authorities, and a desire for peace are concentrated primarily in the regions, while Moscow now stands apart for its markedly more statist and militaristic attitudes.
From Self-Censorship to Exposé
New Drama began about a decade after the fall of Soviet Union. It used the stage to speak directly about social issues, which state-sponsored media in Russia would not cover. One of the movement’s main formal qualities of the movement was its reliance on docudrama.
Letter from Kyiv
Wartime Kyiv is sometimes criticized for its hedonism… That’s what keeps the country sane… the modest trappings of civilization. We need our flag, and we need a disco-ball. Without either one, the hardships of the last years would make no sense.
Nobody’s Heroes
Russia's closed pavilion at the Venice Biennale — funded by a Ukrainian, designed by a Soviet architect — stands as an accidental monument to a century of ideological reinvention.
Letter from Kyiv
In Kyiv, an invisible competition for the country’s future shape is percolating. More a tectonic than a political competition, it is proceeding slowly and at times painfully.
The Battle for Memory
New monuments are being erected and old ones destroyed in Ukraine’s occupied territories. The Reckoning Project — a global team of journalists and lawyers documenting, publicizing and building cases for war crimes— has interviewed witnesses.
Systemic Strain and the Logic of Escalation
A figure once known as an anti-Navalny attack dog now presents himself as the head of the Russian opposition. Several outlets have circulated a leaked report this week claiming that Putin is in hiding, fearful of a coup. Observers abroad and many within Russia’s pro-war camp are beginning to register growing tensions in Putin’s world.
To Leave or Not to Leave: How Russian Technocrats Undermined Western Efforts to Isolate Russia
In 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the West’s concerted policy was to isolate the Russian economy and to ensure that Western companies left the country. In practice, a legal exit and an economic exit have proven to be two different things.
Dagestan’s Divided House: Europe’s Ethnically Most Complex Place
Imagine a region where more than thirty distinct ethnic groups share the same administrative borders, speak fourteen mutually unintelligible languages, have coexisted for centuries and yet still struggle to define a common identity. This is Dagestan, a republic on Russia’s southern frontier with Azerbaijan and Georgia, and arguably the most ethnically complex territory in Europe.
The Kremlin’s Telegram Dilemma
The Kremlin has waged a sustained assault on internet freedoms in Russia throughout the full-scale war. In recent months, this effort has focused on Telegram, a widely used messaging platform.
Weapons of the Weak: What Today’s Russian Humor Reveals
Jokes, songs, rumors and small acts of sabotage do not directly threaten power, but they reinforce distrust of the “strong.” The prevalence of satiric and critical discourse is an indicator of social tension and therefore something that deserves close attention.
Big Data, Digital Research Methods, and Circumnavigating Archival Challenges
Since 2022, severely curtailed access to archives has made the study of the history of the former Soviet Union more challenging.
Non-Political-Yet-Political Theater Comes to Washington
A remarkable moment has dawned on Washington stages, as theater artists and their audiences struggle to blend resistance to a hostile federal administration with an artistic imagination that transcends the political. Two noteworthy productions – Inherit the Wind at Arena Stage, and The Crucible at the Washington National Opera – elevate political messages embedded in the original works by given them contemporary readings.
The Rise of Mr. Nobody
Pavel Talankin had a routine job filming school activities in a small town 1,600 kilometers east of Moscow. In 2022, he realized he was documenting something that was not routine at all, the spread of pro-war indoctrination among children. That was a story.
Reflections on Russia’s Nuclear Behavior
Given the failure to renew the 2010 New START Treaty limiting Russian and American nuclear weapons, now is an auspicious time to revisit Russia’s nuclear behavior.
Conditional Ownership: Russia’s Two Property Regimes
Large private holdings are being nationalized, re-privatized, or quietly transferred to actors deemed politically reliable. What once appeared as exceptional cases has become a pattern. Redistribution is becoming a structural feature of governance.
Ukraine is enduring its coldest winter since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.
In this video report from Ukraine, journalist Simon Ostrovsky documents the impact of continued Russian missile and drone strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. Widespread power cuts and blackouts have left millions without reliable electricity during extreme winter conditions.
The Dangerous Legacy of Alexander Herzen
After Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine began four years ago, negative comments about the nineteenth-century writer and opposition figure Alexander Herzen intensified across Russian social media.
Cheburashka’s Second Coming
The story of Cheburashka, a seemingly innocuous cartoon and film character, has much to tell us about today’s Russia and its cultural landscape.