Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine | PONARS Eurasia Insights
OUR MISSION
The Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) is a network of over 125 academics, mainly from North America and post-Soviet Eurasia, advancing new approaches to research on security, politics, economics, and society in Russia and Eurasia. Its core missions are to connect scholarship to policy on and in Russia and Eurasia and to foster a community, especially of mid-career and rising scholars, committed to developing policy-relevant and collaborative research.
Policy memos
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Unfulfillable Promise: Mediation Efforts in the Russian-Ukrainian War Since 2014
Image license/credit Part 1. The Gray-Zone ConflictThis memo is the first in a two-part assessment of the effectiveness of mediation in the Russian-Ukrainian war during its gray-zone (2014-2022) and conventional (2022-present) stages. There have been intensive and varied mediation initiatives between Ukraine and Russia —initially to prevent conflict and later to resolve it—since the…
Cossack Education Becoming Further Institutionalized Across Russia’s Regions
Russia is going to great lengths to maintain its war effort in Ukraine without having to resort to another wave of mass mobilization (see EDM, October 10, 31). Military-adjacent structures, such as the Registered Cossacks, are becoming increasingly important as a source of recruits for the Russian army. Cossack education plays a central role in this process, ensuring the indoctrination of…
2023 Annual Policy Conference
The PONARS Annual Policy Conference convenes international experts from North America, Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia for a series of panel discussions. This year’s event offers insight from leading scholars and experts into comparative politics and international affairs in the region, both related to and beyond Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. The live event will be exclusively…
How Foreign Funders Should Strengthen Their Support for Civil Society: A Case Study of USAID in Kazakhstan
Image license/credit U.S. and other foreign donors have engaged in Kazakhstan to support the development of an independent and sustainable civil society, which they see as a pillar of democratization, human rights, and economic and social development. Yet thirty years on, Kazakhstan remains an authoritarian country with a spotty human rights record and constraints on independent civil…
Clearing the Air: Secretary Blinken Visits Ukraine
Image license/credit Secretary Blinken’s recent visit to Ukraine stands out in a number of ways. Blinken had not been in Ukraine for exactly a year, since September 8, 2022. This is quite a long time considering the level of engagement between Kyiv and Washington since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion against Ukraine in February 2022. Indeed, this engagement has been enormous and…
The Kremlin Uses Registered Cossacks as a Means of Stealth Mobilization
The number of registered “Cossacks” involved in the “Special Military Operation” (SVO) in Eastern Ukraine has risen to 25,000, taking into account rotations and leaves. This number was mentioned in announcements at the All-Russian Forum “Cossacks in the North Caucasus: Current Stage and Image of the Future” at Pyatigorsk State University in Stavropol. On behalf of the Ataman (head) of the…
Ukraine Task Force: Getting Ukraine Right: From Negotiations Trap to Victory
PONARS Eurasia has organized a Task Force of prominent academic experts based in Ukraine, Europe, and North America to generate expert-group assessments of Ukraine-related events, issues, and trends. Our goal is to help other scholars, the policy community, and the public to make sense of and put into broader context the voluminous flow of information from and about the region. See the…
Ensuring Genuine Results? A New Electoral Design in Uzbekistan
PONARS Eurasia Commentary | Uzbekistan is undergoing its first constitutional reforms since Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s accession to power in 2016, marking another important change to its political structure. The president has proposed replacing the two-part system with a mixed-member parallel system to increase the role of political parties in governance. According to officials, the new…
Online Academy
PONARS Eurasia Online Academy: educational videos authored by members and designed to provide succinct overviews of policy-relevant research and scholarship on Russia and Eurasia. Each video is accompanied by a list of additional sources, providing a foundation for those who would like to learn more about the topics addressed.
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- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
