War, art, and sanctions: social network analysis on the NACP’s databases of sanctioned Russian individuals and art collectors

Abstract

AbstractUntil March 2024, Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) was tasked with maintaining databases of individuals sanctioned for their support of Russian military action in Ukraine and monitoring works of art owned by these individuals to prevent their being sold in violation of sanctions. The present study gathered data from the NACP’s War & Sanctions and War & Art databases through a combination of web scraping and API requests. These data were then examined using measures of network analysis (including degree centrality, eigenvector centrality, and clustering coefficient), which allowed the visualisation and statistical analysis of the network of Russian elite. This research is the first that has conducted scientific analysis on these datasets. Investigation determined that the social network of individuals in the upper strata of Russian society is vast and moderately centralised, with over a dozen clusters around influential Russian oligarchs, politicians, and celebrities. It also determined that art collectors have a more central role in this network than non-collectors of art. The network exhibits a clear presence of hubs and nodes with high degree centrality and a high degree-betweenness centrality correlation, indicating that information can flow quickly and efficiently. However, the network’s dependence on a few key individuals could constitute a vulnerability, with the extraction or isolation of these figures potentially disrupting the network’s function and coordination. This research also identified inconsistencies in the imposition of sanctions, creating grey areas that could allow the continued trade of cultural goods, potentially bypassing international restrictions.