Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus Regional Research

14/10/2026

🎓Welcome to the next RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series!

We are delighted to invite you to a talk Professor Staffan I. Lindberg: “Global Trends According to Democracy Report 2026: Going from Bad to Worse?”, as a part of our RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series.
📆When? Tuesday 20th of October, 17:30-19:00
🏠Where? Niagara (Nordenskiöldsgatan 1, 211 19 Malmö), NI:C0E11 or Zoom: https://lnkd.in/eJmskMPq

Speaker:
Staffan I. Lindberg is Professor of Political Science and Founding Director 2012-2025) of the V-Dem Institute; PI of Varieties of Democracy; Founding Director of the national research infrastructure DEMSCORE (2019-present); Wallenberg Academy Fellow alumni; co-author of Varieties of Democracy (CUP 2020), Why Democracies Develop and Decline (CUP 2022) as well as other books and over 80 scientific articles as well as numerous reports, policy briefs, and think-pieces; extensive experience as consultant on development and democracy, and as advisor to international organizations, ministries, and state authorities. Lindberg is the principal author of the annual Democracy Report, the Case for Democracy and numerous policy briefs out of the V-Dem Institute. ORCID ID: https://lnkd.in/eRDQr3Xn

Abstract:
In this talk, Professsor Lindberg shows evidence on the extent of autocratization in the world the last 25 years. How far has it gone? What is driving it? Can it be stopped and how? Based on V-Dem’s 31 million data and numerous scientific publications including the annual Democracy Report, this talk takes stock of the present and what might be the future.

Moderator: Dr. Michel Vincent Anderlini, PhD, Malmö University

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30/09/2026

Seminar October 13: Simulated Grassroots: How Russian Bot Networks Delegitimize Joe Biden on VKontakte

🎤 Nikolay Ternov is Associate Professor of Sociology and Political Science at L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University (Astana, Kazakhstan)
📅October 13, 10:15-12:00 (CET)
🏢Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/63890809157?from=addon

Abstract: How does digital propaganda manufacture the appearance of popular opinion? Drawing on a corpus of 48,000 messages posted by bot accounts on VKontakte (2019-2024), this talk examines how Joe Biden is represented in the astroturfing discourse of the RuNet. Combining sentence embeddings, UMAP/HDBSCAN topic modeling, lexical analysis and sentiment and toxicity classification, I show that the campaign relies less on overt aggression than on what we call "low-threshold rhetorical toxicity": irony, infantilization ("grandfather") and cognitive stigmatization ("senile", "poor Biden"). Biden is assembled as a symbolic anti-leader, a figure of weakness and geopolitical threat, while pseudo-patriotic formulas such as "our country" disguise coordinated activity as the voice of ordinary citizens. Bot activity follows the political agenda closely, functioning as an infrastructure of narrative maintenance rather than a simple relay of messages. I conclude by discussing the limits of bot identification on closed platforms and how these findings connect to ongoing work on Telegram in Kazakhstan.

17/09/2026

🎓Welcome to our first second seminar of this autumn!

Seminar September 29: Speaking Borders, Speaking Europe: Entangled Borders in the Baltic–Nordic Space
🎤Sandra Hagelin, PhD in Political Science and Government from the University of Tartu
📅September 29, 10:15-12:00 (CET)
🏢Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/69905696872?from=addon
Abstract: Borders are commonly understood as distinct institutional boundaries separating states, territories, and political communities. Yet in political discourse, different borders may become intertwined, acquiring meanings that extend beyond their formal institutional functions. This talk examines how Nordic and Baltic governments discursively construct and connect national, EU/Schengen, and, at times, NATO borders during periods of border-related crisis. Drawing on governmental communication from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania across three crisis-related events, the 2015–16 migration crisis, the 2021 Belarusian instrumentalization of migration, and debates over restrictions on Russian Schengen visa holders in 2022, the talk explores how different forms of bordering become entangled with broader understandings of political order and European identity. These discursive entanglements transform borders from territorial demarcations into sites where ideas about security, belonging, and Europe are negotiated. The talk concludes by considering what these entangled constructions of borders reveal about contemporary understandings of European security and belonging, the changing geopolitical imagination of Europe’s northeastern neighborhood, as well as its implications for the future governance and bordering of migration.

09/09/2026

🎓Welcome to our first online seminar of the autumn semester 2026!

Seminar September 15: From role change to policy change: EU member states and change in EU foreign policy after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

🎤Tyyne Karjalainen, Research Fellow in the European Union research programme at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs - FIIA (FIIA)
📅September 15, 10:15-12:00 (CET)
🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/ebJTMcWd

Abstract: Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has led to a fundamental rethinking of EU foreign policy, including enlargement, security and defence and energy policy. This lecture builds on a recent article published in the Journal of European Integration and analyses the EU policy shift as an outcome of the member states’ co‑constitutive role changes: abandoning opposition to enlargement, renouncing the energy partnership with Russia, and the military turn. It shows that these changes remain contested and highly context-specific, limiting outcomes of the EU policy shift. While the EU is increasingly expected to implement its new defence agenda, the member states’ objectives remain fragmented. In enlargement policy, the member states’ role changes are not sufficient for enlargement to materialise.

01/09/2026

Welcome to the new academic year! 🎓

We will kick off the year with a talk by Gwendolyn Sasse: “Democracy and Authoritarianism in Russia‘s War against Ukraine”, as a part of our RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series.

📆When? Tuesday 8th of September, 17:30-19:00
🏠Where? Niagara (Nordenskiöldsgatan 1, 211 19 Malmö), NI:C0E11 or Zoom: https://mau-se.zoom.us/j/61253932198

Speaker: Gwendolyn Sasse is the Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) and Einstein Professor for the Comparative Study of Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Previously, she was Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford. She maintains her connection with Oxford as a Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College. She is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Think Tank Carnegie Europe. Her research interests include the study of war, displacement, migrant political remittances, and protest mobilisation (with a special emphasis on Ukraine and Eastern Europe). Much of her research in recent years has been based on survey research, focus groups and interviews with „ordinary“ citizens, including migrants. Her research on migrant engagement and transnationalism has been published in leading political science and migration journals, incl. Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Comparative Migration Studies and in leading area studies journals. She has (co-)edited special issues for Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia-Studies and Nationalities Papers and contributed to numerous special issues. Her most recent book is Russia’s War against Ukraine, Polity Press, 2023 (published in German as Russlands Krieg gegen die Ukraine by C.H.Beck, 2022, revised edition 2024).

Abstract: Russia’s war against Ukraine began with the annexation of Crimea, continued with the war in Donbas and escalated into a full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. Regime dynamics are a key dimension of this war. Ukraine’s democratisation and westward orientation posed a threat to the self-preservation of the authoritarian system in Russia. Putin used several windows of opportunity to manage this perceived risk by weakening or destroying Ukraine as an independent state and nation. Ultimately, Russia’s imperial strategy has failed, but there is also no end to this war in sight. This lecture will trace the role of regime types in the escalation of war and the effects of war on the political systems and societies in Ukraine and Russia. Based on the comparative study of war and democracy/authoritarianism, this war raises questions about the future political outlook of Ukraine and Russia.

Moderator: Prof. Derek Hutcheson, Malmö University

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27/05/2026

RUCARR Seminar June 2, 13:15-15:00 pm CET: "Russian-led Eurasia: still holding together, but for how long?" by Sean Roberts, Senior Lecturer and Ulrike Ziemer PhD, Senior Lecturer, both from University of Wi******er.

More info and Zoom-link here:

🎤Sean Roberts, Senior Lecturer and Ulrike Ziemer PhD, Senior Lecturer, both from University of Wi******er 📅June 2, 13:15-15:00 🏢Zoom: https://lnkd.in/eFB3P9Ua

15/05/2026

RUCARR Seminar May 19, 3.15-5 pm CET: "The Colonial Imaginary of ‘Europe’ in the EU’s Asymmetrical Response to the Russian and Israeli Aggressions: Ukraine as a Member of the ‘Family’ Whilst ‘Othering’ Palestine" with Alvaro Oleart, Post-doctoral Researcher at the Université Libre de Belgique (ULB). More info and Zoom link: https://rucarr.mau.se/2026/05/15/seminar-may-19-the-colonial-imaginary-of-europe-in-the-eus-asymmetrical-response-to-the-russian-and-israeli-aggressions-ukraine-as-a-member-of-the-family-whilst/

30/04/2026

Welcome to join us on May 5 for Professor Madina Tlostanova's talk: “Caucasian deep coalitions? A case for the future relational critical political imaginary” in the RUCARR Distinguished Speaker Series. Madina Tlostanova is professor of gender studies at Linköping University (Sweden) and a decolonial feminist thinker and fiction writer.
Time: 5 May, 17:30-19:00 CET
Place: Niagara (Nordenskiöldsgatan 1, 211 19 Malmö), NI:C0E11 or Zoom. More info, abstract and Zoom link:
https://rucarr.mau.se/2026/04/30/rucarr-distinguished-speaker-series-may-5-madina-tlostanova-caucasian-deep-coalitions-a-case-for-the-future-relational-critical-political-imaginary/

20/04/2026

Welcome to next RUCARR seminar with Alexandra Brankova: "Russian Digital Nationalism: Digital Practices and Discursive Constructions of the Russian Nation in a Nationalist Media Ecology". April 21, 15:15-17:00 CET, NI:C1029, Niagara or Zoom.
Alexandra Brankova is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at the Swedish Defence University.
More info and zoom link: https://rucarr.mau.se/2026/04/20/rucarr-seminar-with-alexandra-brankova-russian-digital-nationalism-april-21/