1. Introduction: Identity Crisis and the Search for the ‘Beautiful Russia of the Future’ The signing of the ‘Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces’ in Berlin on 30 April 2023 was a landmark event in the history of modern Russian political emigration. The document, which brought together the signatures of figures such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry…
Category: Research Centre
Torture as an Administrative Procedurein Russian New-Empire
Violence in the ‘Russian World’ megaproject is not an aberration or a breakdown of discipline; it is a feature of the Sistema. The widespread reports of torture, sexual violence, and summary executions point to a systemic policy designed to break the will of the population, eliminate potential resistance, and enforce compliance with the new order….
Georgy Burkov: ‘Kill me, but Stalinism is a disease…’
In 1990, Russian actor Georgy Burkov (31 May 1933 – 19 July 1990) passed away. After his death, the actor’s widow, Tatyana Ukharova, gave permission to publish her husband’s diary entries, which he had kept from 1953 to 1990. We are all concentration camp amateurs. Underdeveloped and talentless people continue to terrorise and rob a…
Dmytro Yagunov: The Imperial Digital Panopticon: When ‘Big Brother’ Goes from Metaphor to Reality
An experiment has been launched in Moscow to exercise total control over migration flows, going far beyond traditional administration. Speaking live on TV Centre and Moscow 24 television channels, the mayor of the imperial capital, Sergei Sobyanin, effectively described a system that realises the darkest predictions of George Orwell in his immortal novel 1984. While…
Training for Trainers on Human Rights Protection in Places of Detention
On 4-5 December 2025 The Centre for European Constitutional Law (CECL), in partnership with the European Prison Litigation Network and the Human Rights Centre ZMINA, hosted a specialised Training of Trainers on the Protection of Fundamental Rights in Detention in Athens. The two-day intensive programme formed part of the DIGNITY project, an initiative co-funded by…
Dmytro Yagunov: Beyond Technological Determinism: Russia’s Adaptive Imperial Flexibility
In this article, we want to challenge traditional academic views on Russian imperialism, emphasising that contemporary analyses fail to take into account the Russian Federation’s adaptive capacity to preserve and project imperial power. Contrary to notions of technological and institutional backwardness, Russia’s neo-imperial apparatus demonstrates extraordinary flexibility through its use of private military companies (PMCs),…
Dmytro Yagunov: Russian Criminal and Prison Culture: Historical Background, Importation in the 21st Century, and the Wagner Phenomenon
The article is focused on the origins of the 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,…
Dmtro Yagunov: Empire Unmasked (Russian Neo-Imperialism Today)
When discussing modern Russia, every researcher must take into account a very important and fundamental element (or factor) related to the fact that Russia is a unique state in the world, which has preserved its essence for at least the last five centuries. This period began when the Principality of Moscow launched its colonial policy,…
City Zero: On the Question of the Essence of Russian Imperialism
On the day of the prosecutor’s office, I remembered the film ‘City Zero’. Actually, not the film itself, but the monologue of the prosecutor from the film, which is undoubtedly extremely relevant today. The film is one thing, but few people remember this excerpt, which, in my opinion, is the essence of the causes of…
Russian Imperialism: How, By ‘Protecting the Russian Language,’ the Kremlin is Destroying the Languages of the Occupied Peoples
Indigenous and small-numbered peoples in Russia are dying out: 67% of them have declined in number over the last 10 years. Despite this, it is the national republics that have been hardest hit by mobilisation. Belonging to an indigenous minority group is grounds for exercising the right to alternative civilian service, but this right does…