On March 4, 2022, Roskomnadzor blocked Meduza’s domain under Article 15.1 of Federal Law 149-FZ—the same statute used incrementally since 2012 to throttle independent outlets under the pretext of protecting minors from harmful content. Meduza’s editorial board had already been…
Oligarchs as Shock Absorbers: How Concentrated Wealth Stabilizes Post-Soviet Authoritarianism
Oligarchs are not the rulers of post-Soviet states; they are the load-bearing walls of regimes that cannot survive without them. In Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Central Asia, the term “oligarch” describes a narrow class of actors who converted political proximity…
Oligarchs as Shock Absorbers: How Concentrated Wealth Keeps Post-Soviet Regimes Upright
Oligarchs are not simply rich men with political opinions. In the post-Soviet space, they are a structural component of regime maintenance: a class of asset holders whose wealth depends on proximity to executive power, and whose compliance is purchased through…
How Russian Courts Use Sequential Administrative and Criminal Charges to Double Pre-Trial Detention in Political Cases
Case No. 1-284/2023. Tverskoy District Court, Moscow. March 2023. A 34-year-old software engineer—let’s call him Anton—stands accused under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code (КоАП РФ): possession or public display of extremist symbols. His offense was reposting an image from…
The Oligarch as Infrastructure: How Post-Soviet Fortunes Stabilize Authoritarian Rule
The Oligarch as Infrastructure: How Post-Soviet Fortunes Stabilize Authoritarian Rule By Yelena Sorokina | April 7, 2025 The modern oligarch operates not from a throne, but from a boardroom, merging state and private capital into a single instrument of control.…