The Russian World

What will happen to Kyiv’s economy when the war ceases to be the main obstacle, whilst its consequences – labour shortages, destroyed infrastructure, the need for capital and security risks – remain?

The taiga is burning beyond the Urals, the rivers in Tyumen and the Moscow region are full of dead fish, and there are oil spills in the Russian part of the Black Sea. Meanwhile, a large-scale investigation has identified 1,497 people accused of treason and espionage in Russia for actions linked to environmental protection.

The closer we get to Russia’s parliamentary election on 20 September, the more thoroughly the authorities flaunt their authoritarianism. And the most paradoxical aspect of this story is that both the government and the opposition, including the liberals of the Yabloko party, are actively taking part in the game.

With permafrost thaw reaching 70 cm in 2023, up to 80 per cent of buildings in the Arctic began to deform. The agricultural sector could benefit though, turning polar regions into a new breadbasket. Beyond the slogans, unresolved issues remain: flooding, soil degradation, and unpredictable changes.

For several centuries, the Orthodox Church in Kyiv and Moscow dated the Baptism of Rus' to 1 August 988, the feast of the Merciful Saviour and the Most Holy Theotokos, the day in which water was to be blessed in memory of the “Source of the Dnieper”. The idea of ​​linking the holiday to the memory of Vladimir arose in the context of the ecclesiastical and political intrigues of 2008.

In his book *People Behind the Fence*, journalist Maksim Trudoljubov explains the different types of Russian citizenship, based on moral service and private property. He also explores how a post-Putin and post-war transition might be organised on the basis of these principles.

Queuing is the fundamental form of social organisation and political control in Russia. It offers an image of communal existence, where the all-powerful state distributes benefits from the top, and the people, like supplicants, are organised in a single chain at the bottom.

Russian citizens have been worn down considerably by the war. Like the elderly, people who are still full of vigour have rushed to take refuge in comfortable information and social bubbles, aware that they have lost any prospect of a normal life

By trying to impose on society a false narrative of “preventive self-defence”, Putin is attempting to completely absolve himself of personal responsibility before history for triggering a new Cold War, which has effectively isolated the country from the developed world and set its development back by decades.

For years, drawing on its own interpretation of history, the Kremlin has promoted the view that the Polish and Ukrainian national myths are fundamentally incompatible, and that a clash between them was only a matter of time. After 2022, this theory seemed to have been laid to rest once and for all. Today, the leaders in Warsaw and Kyiv have brought it back into vogue with their own hands.

By targeting the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Moscow has struck the sacred site it has used for centuries as evidence of its "special spiritual mission", which it refused to cede to the Ukrainians until its complete evacuation. Now it will be necessary to rebuild the place, like after the Tatar-Mongol invasion, and the Great Patriotic War against the Nazis.

The Russian academic world has been silenced. An unprecedented campaign mounted around a research project on Aristotle is even discrediting the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. And whereas in 2022 scientists were the professional group most vocal in condemning the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, today their community has all but vanished from the public eye.