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Advances in digital technology are fundamentally reshaping the nature and dynamics of control mechanisms in authoritarian states. While there has been a surge in research on the strategies autocracies use to enhance control over the internet, scholarship on "digital authoritarianism" insufficiently acknowledges the concentration of power in increasingly integrated digital infrastructures and the transnational dependencies this has given rise to. In this article we argue that authoritarian states' dependence on foreign digital technologies and services can shape and constrain their capacity to control, surveil, and repress domestically. To illustrate our argument, we examine how Russia's war against Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia in response have influenced its domestic repressive capacities. Assessing the period February-September 2022, we find that the war has had an ambiguous effect, both providing enhanced capacity for digital authoritarianism and undermining the future integrity of the digital infrastructures on which this repressive apparatus relies on.

Russland ist ein personalistisches autoritäres Regime. Das Konzept der Regimepersonalisierung bietet einen Analyserahmen, der sowohl zur Erklärung, am 24. Februar 2022 einen Angriffskrieg gegen das ganze Territorium zu beginnen, als auch der innenpolitischen Reaktion der russischen Elite und Gesellschaft auf den Krieg, hilfreich sein kann. Der Hauptteil referiert wichtige Befunde der sogenannten "war termination"-Literatur und legt dar, wie sich Siege und Niederlagen in Kriegen auf die Überlebenschancen von Diktatoren auswirken. Personalistische autoritäre Herrscher haben dabei besonderes hohe Chancen, selbst bei einer Kriegsniederlage an der Macht zu bleiben. Es wird argumentiert, dass insbesondere die beiden Aspekte "Verantwortlichkeit" und "Vulnerabilität herangezogen werden sollten, um abschätzen zu können, ob Wladimir Putin nach einer Niederlage in der Ukraine die Macht verlieren könnte. Obwohl Putin klar als derjenige zu identifizieren ist, der die Kriegsentscheidung getroffen hat, hat er Strategien entwickelt, um Verantwortlichkeit auf andere abzuwälzen und immer mehr Akteure in die Kriegsbemühungen zu involvieren. Zudem bleibt Putin aufgrund der Regimepersonalisierung derzeit wenig vulnerabel, er ist kaum angreifbar: er hat sein Regime gut gegen einen Staatsstreich abgesichert, die Eliten bleiben weitestgehend loyal, nur wenige haben sich von ihm losgesagt. Auch großangelegte Säuberungsaktionen und häufige Kaderrotationen bleiben (mit Ausnahme der häufigen Wechsel in der Armee) aus. Die Schlussfolgerung lautet, dass das russische Regime derzeit noch über multiple Resilienzen verfügt und eine Niederlage in der Ukraine nicht unbedingt zum Machtverlust von Putin als personalistischem Herrscher führen müsste.

This edition is the second issue with a number of short comments on the ongoing conflict around Ukraine. The comments are authored by a variety of experts and focus on different aspects of the crisis and ongoing dynamics. The contributions cover the fast-track extraterritorial naturalization of Donbas residents, the question whether the Russian people would punish Putin for invading Ukraine, war optimism on both sides, and the impact on global security of the recognition of the “Luhansk People’s Republic”/”Donetsk People’s Republic” by Russia., Diese Ausgabe ist die zweite Ausgabe mit einer Reihe von Kurzkommentaren zum anhaltenden Konflikt um die Ukraine. Die Kommentare wurden von Experten auf verschiedenen Gebieten verfasst und konzentrieren sich auf verschiedene Aspekte der Krise und die anhaltende Dynamik. Die Beiträge umfassen die beschleunigte extraterritoriale Einbürgerung von Donbass-Bewohnern, die Frage, ob das russische Volk Putin für den Einmarsch in die Ukraine bestrafen würde, Kriegsoptimismus auf beiden Seiten und die Auswirkungen der Anerkennung der „Volksrepublik Luhansk“ und der „Volksrepublik Donezk“ durch Russland auf die globale Sicherheit., Russian Analytical Digest (RAD), 277, ISSN:1863-0421

The topics of this issue are the political regime stability in Russia a month after the start of the attack on Ukraine and the impact of the war on Russian agriculture and Russian universities. The five contributions on political regime stability discuss the reliability of Russian opinion polls on the war, the authoritarian consolidation of recent years, the unity of the elites, the possibilities for protests and opposition, and the control of Russian online media., Die Themen dieser Ausgabe sind die politische Stabilität in Russland einen Monat nach dem Beginn des Angriffs auf die Ukraine sowie die Auswirkungen des Krieges auf die russische Landwirtschaft und auf russische Universitäten. Die insgesamt fünf Beiträge zur politischen Stabilität diskutieren die Zuverlässigkeit russischer Meinungsumfragen zum Krieg, die autoritäre Konsolidierung der letzten Jahre, die Geschlossenheit der Eliten, die Möglichkeiten für Proteste und Opposition sowie die Kontrolle russischer Online-Medien., Russian Analytical Digest (RAD), 281, ISSN:1863-0421

Referring in this paper to the extraterritorial naturalization of Donbas residents en masse, passportization is one of Russia’s preeminent foreign policy tools to deepen the potentially explosive deadlock in the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. In this deadlock, passportization can serve as a tool of ambiguous Russian extraterritorial governance over the Donbas while keeping violence at a comparatively low level, or as a tool to justify a full-scale Russian military intervention to "protect" its citizens from, for example, a purported "genocide." Russia does not necessarily want more citizens or territories: Russia’s ultimate goals are far-ranging security guarantees to prevent Ukraine’s further integration or membership with NATO. Passportization is one of the instruments to achieve this overarching goal. Passportization of residents of the non-government-controlled areas of the Donbas does not endow these Ukrainians with full membership of the Russian state; they are "second-class citizens" with diminished rights. This becomes especially apparent with regard to not only international non-recognition, but also pensions, social benefits, and voting rights. Due to this "diminished citizenship," Russia suffers from a legitimacy deficit in the self-proclaimed "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk - the "DPR" and "LPR." Enforcing voting rights for Donbas residents in the 2021 Duma elections therefore served the purpose of legitimizing Russia in the residents’ eyes: It suggested that integration with Russia is continuously advancing. In the 2021 Russian Duma (parliamentary) elections, the turnout among eligible passportized Donbas residents was above 40 percent. Of the roughly 200,000 voters, three quarters voted electronically at de facto polling stations (so-called "information centers") on the territory of the "DPR" and "LPR"; one quarter travelled to polling stations in the neighboring Rostov region in Russia. With the whole adult population of the "DPR" and "LPR" as a reference point, less than 10 percent of Donbas residents took part in the Duma elections. Donbas voters are pro-Russian: They have much more favorable views toward United Russia than Russians in the Rostov region. On average, the presence of Donbas residents at respective Rostov polling stations, and at the seven Rostov electoral districts, adds 25 percent to the United Russia result. This is paradoxical, as United Russia follows the official Russian reading of the Minsk Agreements - reintegration of the Donbas with Ukraine on Russian terms - while Donbas residents voted for integration with Russia. But the official results give a distorted picture of support for United Russia, as workplace mobilization and electoral manipulations were widely reported. Ukraine's policy to counteract passportization and the involvement of Ukrainian citizens in Russian elections has a legal foundation: Ukraine does not allow dual citizenship. The fast-track passports are not recognized, and passportized Donbas residents are still considered Ukrainian - and not Russian - citizens. Russian elections with the involvement of Donbas residents are declared illegal and the Russian parliament illegitimate. But beyond this legal foundation, Ukraine lacks a coherent, long-term strategy on how to reintegrate Ukrainians in the "DPR" and "LPR." The reaction of the United States and the EU to Russia's passportization has been weak; a mere non-recognition of these passports is not sufficient. Instead, the West should acknowledge that passportization and the development of Russian electoral infrastructure in the Donbas fundamentally erodes the political part of the Minsk Agreements by undermining the possibility of having free and fair local elections according to OSCE standards. The U.S. and the EU should reinvigorate their support of Ukrainian sovereignty without pushing Ukraine deeper into the "sequency trap" with political concessions. Ukraine urgently needs a coherent long-term policy toward its citizens in the non-government-controlled territories. Policy suggestions from various actors range from hawkish (stripping Donbas residents with Russian passports of Ukrainian citizenship) to conciliatory (de facto recognition of some documents issued by the "DPR" and "LPR"). This hodgepodge of proposed policy responses unmistakably sends the wrong signals to Donbas residents. Instead, Ukraine should deepen its engagement with Donbas residents by making public services more accessible, including by a speedy digital transformation of state services. Better Ukrainian public services would be a powerful tool to counteract Russia’s creeping passportization of the Donbas.

This Policy Paper outlines four possible scenarios for the future of the political system in Belarus by the end of 2022. The scenarios are based on two key drivers that are crucial for political developments in Belarus: the level of social mobilization and democratic transition. The Policy Paper creates a framework for alternative thinking and outlines important insights, opportunities, and risks. It also formulates desirable normative options for political developments in Belarus in the upcoming twelve months and gives policy recommendations on how to make them possible.

This issue provides a broad overview of Russian politics and society in the run-up to the 2021 parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for September. In eleven shorter contributions, international experts on Russia discuss domestic and foreign affairs as well as the economy. The focus of most of them is on attempts of the Russian leadership to deal with growing discontent among the population. This includes the regime’s quest for legitimacy as well as repression and strategies to manipulate the actual election process. Individual contributions also discuss the implications for foreign policy and economic development. The contributions are published in alphabetical order of authors., Diese Ausgabe bietet einen Überblick über die russische Politik und Gesellschaft im Vorfeld der diesjährigen Parlamentswahlen, die für September angesetzt sind. In elf kürzeren Beiträgen diskutieren internationale Russland-Experten die Innen- und Außenpolitik sowie die Wirtschaft. Der Schwerpunkt der meisten Beiträge liegt auf den Versuchen der russischen Führung, mit der wachsenden Unzufriedenheit in der Bevölkerung umzugehen. Dies umfasst neben Strategien zur Legitimation des politischen Regimes sowie Repressionen auch Möglichkeiten der Manipulation des eigentlichen Wahlprozesses. In einzelnen Beiträgen werden auch die Auswirkungen auf die Außenpolitik und die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung erörtert. Die Beiträge werden in alphabetischer Reihenfolge der Autoren veröffentlicht., Russian Analytical Digest (RAD), 266, ISSN:1863-0421

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been tacitly pressing ahead with an ambitious vision to reshape public administration. The main purpose of this advance is to foolproof the Russian state against the drawbacks of the heavy-handed top-down mode of governance of late Putinism, and to squeeze as much as possible out of the stagnant Russian state while avoiding any fundamental change.

Der Antrag der Staatsanwaltschaften auf Auflösung von Memorial International und des Menschenrechtszentrums Memorial fällt in ein Zeitfenster, in dem zahlreiche systemische Akteure versuchen, das "Ausländische Agenten"-Gesetz über Änderungen zu ihren Gunsten abzuschwächen. Für Memorial - für die unabhängige Zivilgesellschaft, für kritische Medien und Privatpersonen - muss das Zeitfenster nicht unbedingt ein Hoffnungsschimmer sein. Wenn überhaupt, sind nur kosmetische Nachbesserungen zu erwarten, die auf bestimmte systemische Lobbygruppen ausgerichtet sind.

This report gives an overview of discussion in the realm of the Southeast Europe Association’s Workshop on current political developments and challenges in Moldova on the 13th and 14th December 2019 in Berlin. The workshop gathered 50 politicians and experts from Moldova, as well as experts from Germany and other EU countries to discuss key challenges Moldova faced in 2019 and to give an outlook on what lies ahead in 2020. Besides taking stock of the country’s turbulent political year 2019, the panels addressed more specific issues such as reforms, the economy, migration, energy as well as foreign policy with a specific focus on the two main external actors Russia and the EU.

The topic of this issue focuses on Russian President Vladimir Putin. Firstly, Caroline von Gall and Laura Jäckel suggest that while the focus of the current Russian constitutional reform is on the succession management allowing President Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036, the adopted amendments go far beyond this. Secondly, Fabian Burkhardt posits that the constitutional amendment that would zero out Putin’s current presidential terms and therefore allow him to run once more for president in 2024 suggest that regime personalization has further progressed. Thirdly, Ulrich Schmid notes that the amended version of Article 68 of the Russian constitution (defining Russian as the official state language) adds an explanation that Russian is the language of the “state-forming people.” Fourthly and lastly, Gwendolyn Sasse covers how often the official Kremlin website refers to the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine, Das Thema dieser Ausgabe ist der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin. Zunächst analysieren Caroline von Gall und Laura Jäckel die aktuelle russische Verfassungsreform, einschließlich der Bedeutung für die Macht des Präsidenten. Zweitens untersucht Fabian Burkhardt, wie diese Reformen die Institution der russischen Präsidentschaft weiter mit dem derzeitigen Präsidenten verknüpft hat. Drittens spricht Ulrich Schmid an, was die Verfassungsreformen über die nationale Identität in Russland aussagen, insbesondere in Bezug auf die Rolle der ethnischen Russen. Viertens berichtet Gwendolyn Sasse, wie oft die offizielle Kreml-Website auf die Annexion der Krim und den Krieg in der Ostukraine verweist., Russian Analytical Digest (RAD), 250, ISSN:1863-0421

Is it still possible to conceive of the institution of the presidency being separate from Vladimir Putin, the president? The constitutional amendment that would zero out Putin’s current presidential terms and therefore allow him to run once more for president in 2024 suggest that regime personalization has further progressed. Nonetheless, it still remains analytically useful and important to distinguish between the presidency and the president: presidential power remains a polymorphous phenomenon. Putin needs to maintain control of a strong presidency to exert authority.

Russia has so far issued almost 200,000 Russian passports to Ukrainians from the "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk. This undermines the Minsk peace process. The passportisation of the Donbas is part of a tried and tested set of foreign policy instruments. Russia is deliberately making it more difficult to resolve territorial conflicts in the post-Soviet space by creating controlled instability. This demonstrative intervention in state sovereignty exerts pressure on the Ukrainian central government in Kyiv. Domestically, Russia’s goal is to counteract its own natural popu­lation decline through immigration. Because of the war in eastern Ukraine, more and more Ukrainians have migrated to Russia; this was one of the reasons behind Russia revising its migration strategy in 2018. The liberalisation of citizenship legislation was aimed particularly at Ukraine. By delaying any resolution to the conflict, Russia achieves two objectives simultaneously: it retains permanent influence on Ukraine via the Donbas, and it becomes more attractive to many Ukrainians as a destination for emigration. (author's abstract)

Russland hat bisher knapp 200 000 russische Pässe an Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer aus den "Volksrepubliken" Donezk und Luhansk vergeben. Damit untergräbt es den Minsker Friedens­prozess. Die Passportisierung des Donbas ist Teil eines erprobten außenpolitischen Instrumentariums. Mit ihm erschwert Russland gezielt die Beilegung ungelöster Territorialkonflikte im postsowjetischen Raum mittels kontrollierter In­stabilität. Durch diesen demonstrativen Eingriff in die staatliche Souveränität übt Russland Druck auf die ukrainische Zentralregierung in Kyjiw aus. Innenpolitisch ver­folgt Russland das Ziel, durch Zuwanderung dem natürlichen Bevölkerungsschwund im eigenen Land entgegenzuwirken. Wegen des Krieges in der Ostukraine migrierten immer mehr Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer nach Russland; dies war einer der Gründe für die Neufassung der russischen Migrationsstrategie im Jahr 2018. Die Libe­ra­lisie­rung der Gesetzgebung über Staatsangehörigkeit zielt insbesondere auf die Ukraine ab. Indem Russland die Lösung des Konflikts verschleppt, erreicht es zwei Ziele auf ein­mal: Erstens behält Moskau über den Donbas dauerhaft Einfluss auf die Ukraine, zweitens wird Russland für viele Ukrainerinnen und Ukrainer als Einwanderungsland attraktiver. (Autorenreferat)

Belarus’s long-term ruler Lukashenka and the opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya (in line with the Coordination Council) pursue irreconcilable goals. Lukashenka aims to divert attention away from the recent fraudulent election and wants to wear down and split the opposition by means of a lengthy constitutional amendment process. Its only goal: to bolster his grip on power. By contrast, the opposition seeks free and fair elections first before an open debate on the constitution could eventually be launched. The EU and Russia officially state that a solution to the conflict should be achieved by Belarusians themselves. But the EU supports Tsikhanouskaya’s call for new elections and does not recognize Lukashenka as a legitimate president, while Russia endorsed Lukashenka’s constitutional reform as a means to overcome the current crisis. What started as a purely internal standoff over the fraudulent election and state repression is now a de facto geopolitical conflict.

The topic of this issue is “Russia and Belarus.” In it, Margarita M. Balmaceda, Siarhei Bohdan, Fabian Burkhardt, Arkady Moshes, Ryhor Nizhnikau, Oxana Schmies and Joerg Forbrig assess the protests in Belarus after the presidential election from the perspective of Russia’s role in Belarus. An interview with Russian sociologist Lev Gudkov and an opinion poll highlighting Russian attitudes towards Belarus round out the issue., Das Thema dieser Ausgabe ist "Russland und Weissrussland". Darin bewerten Margarita M. Balmaceda, Siarhei Bohdan, Fabian Burkhardt, Arkady Moshes, Ryhor Nizhnikau, Oxana Schmies und Jörg Forbrig die Proteste in Belarus nach den Präsidentschaftswahlen aus dem Blickwinkel der Rolle Russlands in Weissrussland. Ein Interview mit dem russischen Soziologen Lew Gudkow und eine Meinungsumfrage, die die russische Haltung gegenüber Weissrussland beleuchtet, runden das Thema ab., Russian Analytical Digest (RAD), 257, ISSN:1863-0421