The focal point presents the findings of the project ‘Eurasia in Global Dialogue’ being carried out at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (IWM). It is edited by Clemena Antonova at the IWM. The focal point is an extension of the earlier focal point, ‘Russia in Global Dialogue’ that ran in Eurozine and at the IWM from 2012–2018 and was edited by Tatiana Zhurzhenko. Further texts have been contributed by journals in the Eurozine network.

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Siberia survives as a single name for a territory covering two-thirds of Russia. Yet it comprises well over a dozen regions, republics and territories. Look at how the borders of Siberia were defined, writes Mikhail Rozhanskiy, and you grasp the imperial nature of Russia’s social space.

Russia’s anti-westernism and territorial revanchism have intensified. A case of deferred post-imperial syndrome linked to the collapse of the USSR? Maybe, says Kirill Rogov. But this alone hardly explains why associated policies are now apparently met with such widespread domestic popularity.

The technology of negative mobilization
Russian public opinion and Vladimir Putin's "Ukrainian policy"
How can it be that, in contrast to the international community, virtually no one in Russia believed that Russian-backed separatists shot down the Malaysian Airlines plane in July? Beyond press censorship, Lev Gudkov looks to Russians themselves, who increasingly hear only what they want to. His analysis draws extensively on research conducted by the Levada Center, presented here in numerous tables and graphs.

With Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the military conflict in eastern Ukraine, the era of post-Soviet tolerance of blurred identities and multiple loyalties has ended. Borderlands, writes Tatiana Zhurzhenko, have once again turned into bloodlands.

No wonder Aleksandr Dugin, founder of Neo-Eurasianism, has caught the attention of western analysts of Russian foreign policy. Anton Shekhovtsov confirms that Dugin, among other far-right intellectuals, has made headway in his struggle for cultural hegemony in Russia.

An insidious obsession with ratings and the suppression of the opposition: this is all that Vladimir Putin’s rule hinges on now, writes Boris Dubin. However, right up until his recent death, the Russian sociologist continued to combine keen insights into Russia’s rotten political culture with a plea for a new, enlightened historical consciousness.
Boris Dubin died on 20 August 2014. This is the last article he wrote.

Back to Yalta?
Stephen Cohen and the Ukrainian crisis
International instability seems to increase with every passing day of the Ukrainian crisis, ushering in a new era of international relations. Slamming Russian studies scholar Stephen Cohen for misrepresenting the crisis, Nikolay Koposov urges the West to devise a completely new way of dealing with Russia.
The silence of the lambs
Why the West should stop being angelic towards Putin
For Vladimir Putin, the West’s tolerance is weakness and dialogue is failure to impose force. Because KGB-styled Russia believes that either you devour, or you are devoured. Europe’s “silence of the lambs”, writes Volodymyr Yermolenko, is not a proper response to Russia’s war.
The hand that feeds
The first victims of sanctions and counter-sanctions
As Russia becomes more and more isolated, the Russian government will need to provide for all those who support it. Maxim Trudolyubov explains why those who can provide for themselves will be the first victims of western sanctions and Russian countermeasures.
Commander of a fortress under siege
What Putin's strategy means for Russia
Sanctions on Russia may tip economic stagnation into recession and widen the country’s gap with western nations still further. This time Putin seems to be plying an isolationist course without regard for the consequences, writes Maria Lipman.
The West must start to put its long-term interests above the instant gratification of London bankers, German gas traders and real estate dealers all over Europe, who are yearning for Russian money. Then the new Cold War can be won, writes Vladislav Inozemtsev.
Poet and essayist Olga Sedakova takes her fellow Russian writers and intellectuals to task for responding with silence to the light emanating from the Maidan: a light of hope, of solidarity and of rehabilitated humanity. A light that Russia would do well to see itself in.
The decline of Gayropa?
How Russia intends to save the world
As the winter Olympics opened in Sochi amid controversy over Russia’s anti-gay laws, Tatiana Riabova and Oleg Riabov showed how official discourse in Russia brands “European sexual deviancy” a natural result of western democratic development; and Russia as the last bastion of “normalcy”.
A surge of state violence and the subsequent curtailment of citizens’ right to protest, combined with an expansion of the authorities’ right to use force: Kirill Rogov reveals how the “Putin doctrine” previously applied to protests in Russia brought Ukraine to the brink of civil war.
Russia Inc.
The new realities of the Russian state
Europe should prepare itself for long-term cooperation with the energy-rich kleptocracy that has developed on its eastern borders. Because, given that the personal enrichment of politicians is part of the very foundation of the regime, Russia’s ruling political elite is not about to change any time soon.