This article concludes that NecroSpeak–an official euphemistic language used in Russian media since 2022-is rooted in a long-standing regime of informational favorability (rezhim informatsionnogo blagopriyatstvovaniya). Far from being merely a set of stylistic choices, it functions as a discursive and ritualised performance of civic loyalty. NecroSpeak not only obscures the violence of war through controlled vocabulary, but also contributes to political disengagement, helping to stabilise authoritarian rule.

The 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia has had a significant impact on the various networks of Russian-speakers residing abroad, leading to the rise of distinct and even conflicting diasporization projects. In Germany, a diverse population of Russian-speaking migrants—including ethnic German resettlers from the post-Soviet space, Jewish migrants, new economic migrants, political migrants, and people who came via other trajectories—faced a pivotal moment that forced many of them, along with their descendants, to redefine their identities and affiliations, often within completely opposing political frameworks. In this paper, we focus on one of those diasporization projects that is intertwined with a politicized Russianness, aligned with pro-Kremlin and nationalist narratives, which draws on a mix of Soviet nostalgia, imperial aspirations, conservative values, and a reactionary stance against the West. We define this project as an illiberal one and maintain that this identity formation has been facilitated by hybrid media platforms like Telegram, where pro-war narratives are circulated and reinforced. By examining this pro-war diasporization project, the paper contributes to the broader discussion on how diasporas are constructed in the context of inter-state conflict, albeit at a distance. It reveals the active role the emerging communities play in shaping and sustaining hegemonic discourses that resonate with Russia’s current geopolitical ambitions. The findings provide insights into how diasporas are formed and transformed in response to critical global events, highlighting their role as both agents and arenas of political struggle, while paying attention to the agency of post-Soviet migrants in reshaping the diasporization projects.

Since the onset of Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, one of the key questions discussed by academics, politicians, and the wider public has been whether Russians genuinely support their government’s course. On the one hand, President Putin’s approval rating surged after the war began, and many expressed declarative support for the war. This may indicate a sense of unity among Russians rallying round their flag and leader. On the other hand, this support is far from consistent; it is marked more by negative than positive emotions and lacks a clear image of the enemy, challenging the conventional “rallying round the flag” explanation for war support in Russia. Based on existing survey data and original qualitative research into how Russians perceive the conflict, this paper explores the complex nature of war support and critically assesses the applicability of the “rallying round the flag” approach in the Russian context.

This article examines the dynamic of depoliticization among and between Russian and Ukrainian volunteers and the Ukrainian refugees they supported in Tbilisi, Georgia over three years following the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drawing on Camille Hamidi’s observations on the depoliticization of interaction between disparate groups in NGO environments, the author identifies a similar process in a Russian-led organization which, despite its otherwise politically active volunteers, was distinctly lacking in polemicized debate. Interviews and ethnographic fieldwork uncovered a number of contributing factors, from explicit policies of the organization’s leadership to the sensibilities of the volunteers and refugees. In a departure from Hamidi’s findings, the article concludes with the observation that the depoliticization found in this NGO contributed to the frustration and degradation of interpersonal bonds within the organization in the long term, rather than a productive papering-over of differences.

Little is known about the processes affecting civil society in Russia since February 2022. Scholarly discussions of civil society in Russia have typically centered on protest activism. However, the wartime context reveals that civil society does not always manifest in oppositional forms. This article explores civic engagement in Russia that aligns with, rather than opposes, the state. The article adopts a framework of statism and anti-statism—not as doctrinal political ideologies, but as broader ideological formations in the Althusserian sense, embedded in everyday practices and identities. This article argues that statism, combined with dense grassroots networks, can foster active participation in the wartime economy, even among those who are politically disengaged. The analysis draws on ethnographic data collected by the author in the Republic of Buryatia in the fall of 2023. This fieldwork was conducted as part of a comparative qualitative study of three Russian regions organized by the Public Sociology Laboratory.

This article analyzes the transformation of Russia’s social contract following the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Prior to the invasion, scholars characterized the Russian social contract as a mutual non-interference agreement or an authoritarian bargain in which economic prosperity or aspirations of national greatness were exchanged for political disengagement. In the aftermath of the invasion, however, the regime initiated a recalibration of this contract to preserve legitimacy under wartime conditions. While the revised social contract retained the core logic of exchanging loyalty for stability, the regime sought to sustain performance legitimacy by shielding the majority from the direct costs of war, while displacing its burdens onto specific marginalized groups, excluding them from the renewed agreement. The emergence of the “Put’ Domoy” movement highlights the fragility and exclusionary nature of this new arrangement. Ultimately, the revised social contract reflects a transformation in how authoritarian legitimacy is managed in times of war – less through shared ideological commitment, and more through a fragmented and selective distribution of costs, risks, and rights. This paper draws on existing surveys and secondary analyses of the effects of the war on Russian society, including three Public Sociology Laboratory studies based on an extensive dataset of in-depth interviews on war perceptions and resistance in Russia, collected between 2022 and 2024.

Abstract: Top political leadership can and often does play a crucial role in countries that transition from one political system to another. As a former Lithuanian Communist Party leader, the first president of independent Lithuania, and the longest-serving prime minister, Algirdas Brazauskas is one of a few Lithuanian policymakers who has left a profound impact on the country. This article reviews Brazauskas' rise to the pinnacles of political power, evaluates his pursued policies, and assesses the legacies he left behind after withdrawing from politics in 2006. The author also examines the claim that Lithuania is facing a leadership crisis in the aftermath of Brazauskas' departure. Keywords: Brazauskas, presidency, prime ministership, legacy, leadership vacuum ********** A political earthquake shook Lithuania on June 1, 2006, when a long-term political survivor, Algirdas Brazauskas--who served as Lithuania's prime minister from 2001-2006--decided to resign, together with all of his cabinet members. A prime minister's departure, in and of itself a commonplace occurrence in European politics, marked a profound turning point in Lithuania's political life. On the one hand, this event signified the end of what became referred to as the country's political patriarch's era of rule. On the other hand, analysts both in the country and abroad began pointing to the leaderless Lithuania phenomenon. was so much attention devoted to this single politician and his departure from a political scene in a small country on the Baltic coast? Individual studies of political leaders always tackle challenging questions: Why should one care about a particular individual? and Did he or she really matter as a leader? Before these questions are addressed, a quick clarification of terminology is in order. The term leadership, as used in this study, should not be understood as a simple holding of a high office position, but rather as a complex phenomenon that encompasses an important quality--the power to sway others and make people do things that they would not have otherwise done. Individuals in power positions are not only able to exercise leadership, but also to achieve success and leave a profound impact on their surroundings through the skillful exploitation of various opportunities (i.e., unique once-in-a-lifetime situations, redefined institutional structures, stretching of assigned constitutional powers, the political culture, or support by constituents) as well as their own personal skills. Studies of political leadership have shown that every individual leader certainly does not matter in all situations all of the time. For instance, Anthony Mughan's and Samuel Patterson's research suggests that leaders are likely to matter more under extreme political circumstances, such as crises and wars.j Furthermore, Timothy Colton and Robert Tucker, Martin Westlake, Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, Archie Brown, and George Breslauer have established that leaders appear to be paramount in periods of transition or considerable change that a state undergoes. (2) Indeed, there is a general agreement among scholars of post-Communist states that leaders matter more when a genuine opportunity exists to change a state's policies. During such times, a leader often has power concentrated in his or her hands; institutions, conversely, remain weak, stay in conflict, or undergo administrative restructuring and are not able to obstruct a leader's policy choices and preferences. In such circumstances leaders have profound personal influence on their country's political life and policy choices. At the same time, these windows of opportunity rarely remain open for an extended period of time, and once they close, the influence of policymakers begins to diminish while that of bureaucratic structures gradually increases and solidifies. Naturally, this is only a general tendency, and the degree of leaders' influence in the policy-formation process varies on a case-by-case basis, primarily because [t]he capacity of actors to shape events is a variable not a constant. …