krainian statehood has existed and transformed for more than ten years in conditions of the Russian armed aggression. Although Ukraine’s institutional system has been constantly tested by political crises and corruption, and traditions of constitutionalism were not well established before the War, the State is a developing constitutional democracy. The political and legal reality that…
Category: Research Centre
Andrii Chernousov: Children in War, or How Russia Kills the Childhood
The Russian Federation continues to involve Ukrainian children in the War violating numerous international standards and treaties. Forced displacement of Ukrainian children remains widespread in territories that are temporarily occupied or under constant shelling. At the same time, there is still no single transparent algorithm or mechanism that allows Ukrainian children deported to Russia to…
Dmytro Yagunov: Prison Subculture or National Prison Culture. Importation of Russian Neocolonial Narratives in the 21st Century
The article is focused on the origins of Russian criminal and prison subculture and the current state of this phenomenon, which is imported by the Russian Federation within its imperialistic neocolonial policy aimed at restoring the ‘Soviet space’. In order to analyse the preconditions for the emergence of the Russian criminal and prison subculture, it…
The Colonial Legacy of the “Wagner State” and the Destruction of the Russian Cultural Code
By creating a giant colony beyond the Urals, unparalleled in world history, and populating it mainly with criminal elements, the Muscovite Tsardom and the Russian Empire laid a time bomb not only under their economy, but also under the very cultural code of the country. This mine has already exploded several times and continues to…
Putin Presents Bill to Withdraw Russia from European Convention against Torture
Russian Dictator Putin has submitted to the Russian parliament a bill to withdraw Russia from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture. The Russian news agencies reported the news citing a parliamentary database, while referring to Moscow’s rejection of the European Convention. The European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading…
Khatia Dekanoidze: Police Reform in Ukraine: Achievements and Failures
The Soviet Union established a deeply corrupt and flawed criminal justice system designed to protect itself. Infiltrated by organised crime, it essentially functioned as a criminal body. Following the Soviet collapse, except for the Baltic states, corruption, clan-based structures, nepotism, and human rights violations persisted in the newly independent republics, mirroring the Soviet framework. It…
Dmytro Yagunov: Informal prison hierarchies in the 21 century: subculture, trends and social control (The 2025 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology)
In this study, we raise the issues of the origins of Soviet criminal and prison subculture, the corresponding informal prisoner hierarchies, and the current state of this social and cultural phenomenon in post-Soviet states. Accordingly, we raise questions about the historical origins and preconditions for the formation of the phenomenon, which continues to influence the…
Dmytro Yagunov: The Wagner Phenomenon: Russian Neo-Imperialism and the Importation of Prison Subculture
The issue of Russian criminal and prison subculture and its spread is by no means historical or criminological in nature. In fact, assessing Russian criminal and prison subculture solely within the framework of historical science or criminology deprives researchers of the opportunity to analyse the essence of this phenomenon. Having shed the prefix ‘sub’, Russian…