Institute of Modern Russia - Institute of Modern Russia

Details: Human Rights

December 2021: the Ingush Case, Memorial and OVD-Info, Yuri Dmitriev

Details: 07 January 2022; Diana Fishman

December 2021 saw an increase in repressions against civil society in Russia. Defendants in the politically motivated Ingush case received lengthy prison sentences. Historian Yuri Dmitriev, head of Memorial’s Karelia office, received a harsher sentence. Memorial itself was slated for liquidation per the ruling of Russia’s Supreme Court.

Details: News

CEPA–IMR joint event: COVID-19 and information warfare

Details: 22 December 2021; Liya Wizevich

On December 15, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), in collaboration with the Institute of Modern Russia (IMR), hosted a panel discussion on the findings and lessons learned from the recently released reports “Jabbed in the Back” and “The Rise and Fall of Sputnik V.” Dalia Bankauskaitė, Ben Dubow, Olga Khvostunova, and Vera Michlin-Shapir shared their views on how Russia and China engaged in information warfare during the COVID-19 pandemic. James Lamond moderated the discussion.

Details: Analysis

New scholarship on Russia presented at the 2021 Virtual ASEEES Convention

Details: 17 December 2021; Liya Wizevich

The virtual sessions of the Annual Convention of the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) were held on December 1-3, 2021. To understand the current state of scholarship in the field, we review five panels that shared the latest research on Russia: the law on foreign agents, elections and protests, propaganda, and the factors leading to legitimization and support of Putin's rule.

Details: Human Rights

November 2021: Memorial, Sergei Zuyev, Yuri Khovansky

Details: 09 December 2021; Diana Fishman

November was marked by the Russian government’s renewed attacks on civil society. The Prosecutor General’s Office ordered the liquidation of International Memorial and its structures, including the Memorial Human Rights Center. The Moscow City Court changed the pre-trial restrictions of Sergei Zuyev, the provost of the Moscow School for Social and Economic Sciences, who is facing fraud charges, from house arrest to detention, despite his critical health condition. In St Petersburg, video blogger Yuri Khovansky is being persecuted for alleged public justification of terrorism as a result of what was, in his own words, an “ill-fated joke.”

Details: Analysis

From Sputnik V to MIR-19: How Russia is eroding scientific standards and the public trust

Details: 07 December 2021; Vera Michlin-Shapir

In mid-October the Russian Federal Medical Biological Agency (FMBA) announced that by the end of 2021, it intends to register the first Russian-developed medicine against the coronavirus—MIR-19. Parallels between the registration of the first Russian anti-COVID-19 drug and the first registered vaccine, Sputnik V, suggest that Russian authorities have not learned their lesson from the vaccine’s troublesome rollout, and mistakes are to be repeated.

Details: Analysis

Union of unfree republics: from dawn to dusk

Details: 07 December 2021; Ekaterina Mishina

The end of December marks the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, resulting in the emergence of 15 new states, formerly Soviet republics, on the territory of the former superpower. The first line of the Soviet anthem—“Unbreakable union of free republics”—was only partially true. While formally free to secede from the Union, no Soviet republic ever attempted to exercise that right until Gorbachev’s reforms. And at the first attempt, the Union categorically refused to acknowledge the independence of the republics that sought to leave the “brotherly family of peoples.” Even at the dusk of its existence the Soviet Union firmly believed in remaining unbreakable, even in violation of its own Constitution.

Details: Analysis

Is America getting Russia wrong? Or is Russia getting the world wrong?

Details: 06 December 2021; Liya Wizevich

Amidst growing tensions between the United States and Russia due to the latter’s military escalation in Ukraine, two experts, Fiona Hill and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, discussed the nature of Moscow’s relationships with Kyiv, the intersection of Russian and Chinese interests, and the critical misunderstandings that exist in Washington about these relationships.

Details: Analysis

Power vertical reloaded: Russia’s upcoming law on public administration

Details: 01 December 2021; András Tóth-Czifra

On December 9, the bill "on the general principles of organizing public power" was passed by Russia's State Duma in the second reading. Its real goal is not to change titles or “zero out” gubernatorial terms, but to change the ways the federal authorities handle relations with regional elites. This makes it especially consequential and, by the standards of today’s Russian politics, hotly contested.

Details: Analysis

The aggravation of the situation in Ukraine is in Moscow’s favor

Details: 26 November 2021; Mykola Vorobiov

The Russian escalation across the Ukrainian border, tensions between Kyiv and Minsk, and a possible energy crisis as the cold season approaches could further push down the declining ratings of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who will need to act more assertively against his opponents. This can provoke a serious conflict with Ukraine, which will work to Moscow’s advantage.

Details: Analysis

The ballot, not the bullet: Russia’s pursuit of a geopolitical buffer zone

Details: 24 November 2021; Michael Wasiura*

For centuries, Russian rulers have sought to maintain a physical buffer zone between themselves and any potential foreign invader. Even today, this historical characteristic of Kremlin psychology is cited as an explanation for Moscow’s attempts to maintain implicit control over political developments in independent Ukraine and Belarus. In a modern context, however, it is not the encroachment of NATO tanks, airplanes, or missiles that poses the greatest existential threat to Russia’s ruling class—it is the spread of free and fair elections.

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