Maxim Krupskiy writes about how an existential threat narrative towards “foreign agents” is formed in Russia, explains how it relates to the new Concept of Russian Foreign Policy and what goals the Putin's regime is trying to achieve by expanding the “foreign agents” legislation.

Nikolay Mitrokhin writes that Ukraine’s recent foray into Russian territory aims to divert manpower and equipment from the main theater of war and create an image of Russians leading the attack. The Russian volunteers who were involved are far-right extremists who fled Russia for Ukraine after committing serious violent crimes.

Ilya Kalinin looks at the issues that the Russian regime has encountered during the war with Ukraine and sees a paradoxical internal challenge that makes victory costlier for this power than defeat.

Andrei Aksenov talks about how a century ago, like now, people who disagreed with political changes in Russia or were threatened with repression fled en masse. They left in a hurry, leaving behind their things and affairs, overpaying for tickets out and hoping for a quick return.

Religion scholar Alexander Blekher discusses the transfer of The Trinity by Andrei Rublev, one of the most famous Russian icons, to the Russian Orthodox Church, comparing the Christian veneration of icons with divine objects in pagan cults.

Oleg Kashin responds to the groundswell of initiatives to end or temporarily stop the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He points out that direct contact between Zelensky and Putin is impossible and considers what else might be done.

Boris Knorre writes about how Church leaders and ordinary conservative clergy interpret the victory in the Great Patriotic War, combining the political with the mystical, and the secular Soviet with the pre-revolution Church.

Ilya Budraitskis writes that the Putin regime needs ideology not in the sense of a coherent worldview, but as a technology of domination that works as a set of performative practices.

Tatyana Stanovaya on what the presidential elections in March 2024 might look like amid the “special military operation,” whether Putin’s successor could take part in them and why friendship with the West is unlikely, even if Russia loses the war.

In his essay, Ilya Kalinin describes the political mythology of the 90s that was created by the Putin regime to legitimize itself. He shows how the various forms of civil conflict and war that characterized the decade became the disguised basis of a new political order.

Tatyana Rybakova explains why the Russian oligarchs do not resist Putin or the war: 20 years ago, when Putin’s power did not yet seem absolute, they were about to oppose him, but in the end backed down.

Mikhail Suslov takes us through the new Russian Foreign Policy Concept, its sources and component parts, and explains what it tells us about the Kremlin’s policy thinkers and their ideological journey.

Cyril Hovorun writes about the deepening of the conflict between the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (part of the Russian Orthodox Church), expressing regret that the two churches are in a mindset of fierce competition rather than dialogue.

Georgy Chizhov on how the conflict between the Orthodox churches of Ukraine developed over the last three decades, how the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate became a victim of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and how the scandal around the Kyiv Lavra will evolve.

In his essay, Ilya Kalinin talks about the lack of political imagination and the dangers of turning to the experience of world wars of the 20th century for explanatory models and arguments in decision-making on the current crisis.

Andrei Yakovlev believes that it is necessary to begin to develop a new socio-political and economic model for Russia after Putin. At this stage, we can talk about an expert-led analytical process featuring the participation of representatives of various elite and professional groups.

Ilya Venyavkin outlines the questions that structure the debates about the ideology of today’s Russia and also discusses the phenomenon of bottom-up 'ideological production' – how the people doing the fighting or actively supporting the war effort on the Russian side are incorporating the war into their picture of reality.

Sergei Shelin writes about profound material changes in Russia: the prosperity of the beneficiaries of militarization, the decline of the middle classes, and the steady restoration of late-Soviet domestic practices.

Natalia Yudina describes how law enforcement’s approach to dealing with the ultra-right in Russia is evolving, even as one of the goals of the “special military operation” was “denazification.”

Sergey Shelin writes that, though the number of Russian dead in Ukraine is already higher than the Afghan and Chechen wars, the Kremlin is not facing pressure to change course. Overall, in the short and medium term, Putin has no reason to worry about problems arising back home.

Andrei Kolesnikov believes that in post-Putin Russia, a softening of the regime is more likely than even worse, fascist-like figures coming to power. He thinks there is no need to fear the future when Russia is hurtling into the past before our eyes.

Alexander Kynev writes about the changes that have taken place in the Russian political landscape since the “special military operation” started a year ago: local politics has been put on the back burner, parties are on the decline, civil society is in shambles and opposition media is trying to reach Russians while in exile.

Mikhail Vinogradov claims that there is a gap between the radicalness of official rhetoric and more moderate attitudes within Russian society and the establishment as a whole, and outlines scenarios for the war moving forward.

Ilya Kalinin suggests that in recent years the structural core of Russian policy, both foreign and domestic, is the historical past. The war has become a continuation of this policy, driven by the historical ambitions of the Russian leadership and its conception of the past.

Gleb Pavlovsky, one of Russia's most brilliant political thinkers, has passed away at age 71. Here is his latest piece for Russia.Post from November 1, 2022.

Nikolay Mitrokhin takes us through the key events in the conflict. He expects the resources on both sides to be depleted within a year, leading to a final stabilization of the front and possibly a truce.

Sergey Mikhailov writes about the way politicians who crafted Minsk agreements are clarifying their own position and the meaning of the agreements in retrospect and argues that Angela Merkel and François Hollande chose not to notice the agreements were essentially unworkable.

Sergei Shelin writes about the systemic liberals, who for 30 years have represented the “human face” of the Russian bureaucracy before suffering a moral and ideological meltdown in 2022. However, their competence remains beyond question: while Putin’s generals were losing battles, the “syslibs” loyal to Putin saved the Russian economy from collapse.

Andrei Kolesnikov writes that since the outbreak of the war active support for the regime has come to imply cheering on cruelty, primitiveness and immorality. The value of human life has been reduced to the willingness to risk one’s life for Putin and his inner circle.

Ilya Budraitskis on how decolonization is being weaponized, why efforts to define what a “decolonization” program should look like are encountering serious obstacles, and why Russians need to figure it out for themselves.

Ilya Kalinin analyzes the arsenal of historical and mythological tools used by the Russian regime to justify its war against Ukraine and explains the essential flaw of the state narrative.

Lisa Gaufman traces some of the major elements of the Kremlin propaganda used to portray the war against Ukraine as legitimate and unify the nation. Among them associations with the Soviet victory in World war II, anti-western conspiracy theories and the "Gayropa" narrative.

Alexander Golts writes about the replacement of General Sergei Surovikin with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and highlights how 11 months after the start of the special military operation, Russia’s military-political leadership continues to experiment with how to manage it.

Mack Tubridy talked with the editor and co-founder of Groza, Leonid Spirin, about why independent student-led media is needed in Russia today.

Nikolai Petrov analyzes a recent meeting with senior government officials in which Putin lost his cool and some discussions were left off the transcript. The backdrop for the meeting was the deteriorating fiscal backdrop and the reshuffle in the command of the Russian military grouping in Ukraine.

Grigory Ioffe writes about the growing rupture between the new Belarusian diaspora and those who remain in the country, as well as the hopeless plight of Belarusian political prisoners.

Nikolai Petrov on how Yandex, Russia’s largest IT company, has managed to avoid being nationalized and who took part in splitting up its Russian and foreign businesses to save them.

Alexander Golts analyzes the statements of Defense Minister Shoigu and President Putin at the year-end Defense Ministry collegium meeting and argues that the ministry has its sights set on bringing back the “mass mobilization army,” which Russia abandoned under the Serdyukov reform of 2008-12.

Sergei Shelin writes about the absence in modern Russia of institutions, social practices and ideological complexes suitable for building a country free of great-power ambitions. Because of this, attempts to convince Russians that the Putin regime is harmful to their interests are doomed to failure.

Jules Sergei Fediunin explains why Russian warmongers get away with their angry criticism of the course of the war and the army’s poor performance, even though a newly adopted law explicitly bans criticism of the Russian military.

Ilya Budraitskis writes that the "unbroken history" of the Russian state has been proclaimed as the foundation of an incontestable official ideology. This means that the past now poses an actual danger to the prevailing order and is under attack.

Maxim Blant explains why, contrary to expectations, the unprecedented international sanctions that have been ramped up in proportion to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine haven’t wrecked the Russian economy or consumer market.

Mack Tubridy examines the impact of the war on Georgia-Russia relations and questions whether everyday attitudes of Georgian citizens toward Russians who fled war are as hostile as some media reports suggest.

Giorgi Masalkini analyzes the reaction of Georgian society to the influx of Russian emigrants and explains why Georgia's stance on the war in Ukraine often looks inconsistent and wavering.

Nikolai Petrov analyzes a series of triumphant interviews by the leadership of the Federal Customs Service and explains how the Russian financial and economic machine, along with propaganda, is operating amid the tightening Western sanctions.

Ivan Kurilla on why the overuse of references to World War II to justify Russia’s war in Ukraine risks destroying what has been the main glue of Russian society and the consensus on which the regime relies.

Ben Noble looks at the State Duma’s activities aimed at managing the appearance of national consensus, and finds difficulties facing the authorities as a result of elite disagreements regarding the war on Ukraine.

Maxim Blant writes about why Gazprom's attempts to stage a "cold winter" in Europe haven’t been very successful. The company has had to slash production, while talk about reorienting supplies to the East have run into logistics problems.

Nikolai Mitrokhin gives an outlook for how the war will proceed from here and predicts that the Russian army won’t be able to win any major victories, while Kiyv has a chance to liberate the south of the country.

Mikhail Suslov discusses why Alexander Zinoviev, quoted by Putin at the last Valdai meeting, is best suited for the role of “official” philosopher of today's Russia.

Representatives of the Belarusian democratic opposition demand the withdrawal of the Russian army from Belarus, while official Minsk maintains that the Russian troops are needed to ensure the country’s security. Yan Auseyushkin writes about how this situation might affect the political crisis in the country.

Gleb Pavlovsky is the author of the "System RF” concept, which suggests that the Russian Federation dating back to 1991 is a unique state entity unlike any previous Russian statehoods. In this article he reflects on how the System might end.

Putin's October decrees introduced special regimes in certain regions, as well as new government bodies. Nikolai Petrov writes that they serve to deepen the process of replacing the constitution with a mixture of emergency measures and legal ambiguity.

Nikolai Petrov writes that the "partial" mobilization announced by Putin has demonstrated the administrative incompetence of the political regime in Russia. Jobs that require timely preparation and can’t be done through colossal cash injections are beyond its power.

Abbas Gallyamov believes that military failures in Ukraine, along with the huge price that the Russian economy is already paying for the war, will weaken Putin's position among both the ruling elite and ordinary voters. Who can succeed Putin?

Can the Russian regime manage the mobilization without further ramping up ideology and indoctrination? Marlene Laruelle discusses the different ideology options currently available to the Kremlin.

The combination of economic upheaval, international sanctions and some key policy development, David Szakonyi argues, is pushing corrupt officials to become more organized in how to abuse their public office and make off with the proceeds.

Based on his research, Andrei Yakovlev argues that in recent years the level of corruption has decreased at the lower and middle levels of the bureaucracy. This, in his view, represents a reason for the unexpected resilience of the Russian economy in the face of Western sanctions.

After a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive, “militarists” dissatisfied with the indecisiveness of the Kremlin have made themselves heard. Andrei Kolesnikov reflects on whether or not power could fall into the hands of the “party of war till the bitter end.”

In addition to government repression and the lack of organizational resources in society, Andrei Semenov writes that there is another factor that may explain the lack a public antiwar movement in Russia – the divide between two cultures of protest.

Putin’s Russia is taking an abrupt isolationist turn, seemingly breaking with over three centuries of Russian history when the West was a constant presence domestically. Maria Lipman considers the possibility of a self-contained Russia.

Mikhail Gorbachev delivered the world from the fear of a nuclear catastrophe and returned to humanity the human – the ability to think and feel free. At the same time, he believed to the last in the possibility of preserving the USSR and socialism, the destruction of which he is usually accused of, recalls political scientist Andrei Kolesnikov.

Over the six months of the Russia-Ukraine war, the idea has faded that Russia's military strategy can be pinned on Putin’s ill health or bad moods. Ivan Grek analyzes the plan behind Russia's invasion and argues that it was logical and well thought out. But there is one caveat.

Mikhail Vinogradov shares his observations on the actions of the authorities and the news flow in recent months, on Russia's relations with its neighbors and far-away countries, and trends in public perception.

Gleb Pavlovsky describes Russia as an improvising state in which process matters more than result. In the current context, the upshot is that while many conflicts have begun impromptu, the conclusion of war can’t be improvised.

Instead of a general mobilization to replenish the army fighting in Ukraine, “volunteer” battalions are being hastily formed across Russia’s regions. Nikolai Petrov believes this practice is based on plans for a long-term positional war.

Alexander Kynev cautions Russian oppositionists from joining coalitions with toxic figures. Such coalitions are likely to do more harm than good by leading to confrontation with a significant part of the internal Russian opposition rather than uniting it.

Agnès Wenger on the rising popularity of Telegram channels belonging to military officers and military correspondents (voenkory) and how these new opinion leaders can criticize the regime while maintaining their patriotic legitimacy.

Andrei Kolesnikov on the idea of banning Russians to travel to Europe and why that would be a flawed and damaging policy that would only encourage those who are already not pro-Western or pro-liberal to support Putin more.

In his previous article for Russia.Post, Abbas Gallyamov advised the Russian elites to seriously think about who the next Russian president should be. This time, he recommends that the West start considering a "Marshall Plan" for post-Putin Russia.

Contrary to expectations, no major decisions were taken at the extraordinary Duma meeting on July 15. Nikolai Petrov writes that Putin might have been forced to back down from plans to announce that the Donbas had been “liberated.”

Abbas Gallyamov believes that reelecting Putin in 2024 would be a serious challenge for the Kremlin. At the same time, Putin’s ideas are still shared by the electorate. In this context, a successor project along the lines of “Putinism without Putin” would help to preserve stability.

In his new book, Vladimir Gel’man analyzes why some countries are governed worse than others, focusing on contemporary Russia. Why is it governed so much worse than one would expect based on its level of socioeconomic development?

Nikolay Petrov looks at the impact of the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions on the Russian business and security elites. Any kind of a consolidated opposition to the Kremlin is very unlikely, he believes.

Tetyana Malyarenko and Stefan Wolff analyze the Russian “civil-military” administration in the occupied Ukrainian territories in the economic, cultural and socio-political spheres.

Abbas Gallyamov writes that the war in Ukraine is starting to disappear from the front pages and soon the economy, living standards and social problems will again be in the spotlight. This represents an opportunity to criticize Putin.

Marlene Laruelle and Kelian Sanz Pascual on the cinematic universe of the PMC Wagner and how pop culture frames are used to promote and celebrate a mercenary realm favorable to Russia.

Maria Lipman talks to Thomas de Waal, Senior Fellow Carnegie Europe, about whether Russia’s preoccupation with its war in Donbas creates new opportunities for a peace deal in the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The amendments to Kazakhstan’s constitution proposed by President Tokayev may look like a move toward democratization, but Kirill Rogov warns not to be fooled – constitutional guarantees can be revised.

A Meduza interview with economist Andrei Yakovlev on the lack of turnover in Russia’s elites since the 1990s and the equilibrium between the security forces and business that has shaped the Russian regime.

Busygina and Filippov analyze the evolution of Russia’s relations with other former Soviet republics and the consequences of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, as well as the debate over whether the ultimate dissolution of the post-Soviet space is inevitable.

A video appeal to President Putin reveals the maximalist mindset of high-ranking army officers wishing to use the war to deeply transform Russian society and state and restore the Soviet borders.

Evgeny Roshchin on why the institutional and non-institutional features of the current Russian regime may resemble the Nazi or Fascist regimes of the past, but are still not yet the same, and will probably never be.

Mikhail Pavlovets on how decoupling from the West is manifesting itself in the Russian education system and on Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Bologna system. How might that look in practice?

Andrey Kolesnikov identifies the elements of the government’s rhetoric accompanying the “special military operation” in Ukraine, explains the shift to undisguised imperialism in Putin’s discourse, and discusses the costs of the pursuit of imperial power

Julian G. Waller on the motivated misclassification of Russia’s political regime as ‘fascist’ and the need for a more serious scholarly conceptualization.

Yuri Dud’ interviews stand-up comedian Dmitry Romanov on how Russian comedians are managing amid the war in Ukraine, divided between those who remain silent and those who spoke out against the invasion.

Georgiy Kasianov deconstructs this Russian propaganda cliché, discussing its building blocks and their historical origins, and explains the role of radical nationalist parties in Ukrainian politics

Botakoz Kassymbekova and Marlene Laruelle on how the myth of imperial innocence has ended for good with the Ukraine war. Russia’s century-old narrative of being an imperial savior, entangled with the sacred memory of World War II, will make any memory process particularly painful.

Mark Lipovetsky looks into the cultural roots of the current Russian mindset, as well as the key works and cultural figures who contributed to its evolution since the late Soviet decades and through the post-Soviet developments

Jean-François Ratelle looks at the challenges facing the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine and cautions against expectations of a swift process.

A pro and con discussion between the Russian sociologist Greg Yudin and the German journalist Roland Bathon on the nature of the post-February 24 Russian regime.

The famous Russian journalist Yuri Dud’ on the solidarity expressed by Russians living in Hungary toward Ukrainians refugees, and the fact that we have only one nationality, that to be human.

The independent online magazine People of Baikal has published a long read about the funerals in Buryatia of soldiers who died in Ukraine.

Marlene Laruelle on how should we discuss the question of Russia’s collective responsibility and what are the comparative case studies to think of for generating a non-moralizing discussion.

Maria Engström on Russian conservative intellectuals' enthusiasm for the war and the idea that total isolation from the West will lead to a conservative revolution and a revival of national culture.