This article explores how asset confiscation and redistribution mechanisms can enhance the operational efficiency and accountability of Ukraine’s patrol police, with the Odesa region serving as a case study. Drawing on comparative insights from the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Canada, the research employs a mixed-methods approach combining legal, empirical, and statistical analysis (2019–2023). The findings indicate that, although patrol police performance and transparency have improved, the lack of a structured framework linking recovered criminal assets to local policing initiatives constrains long-term sustainability. Adapting international best practices, the study proposes legislative and institutional reforms to ensure that confiscated assets are transparently reinvested in patrol operations, officer training, and community safety programmes. The results contribute to ongoing discussions on aligning Ukraine’s asset recovery mechanisms with EU standards and strengthening public trust through accountable resource management.

This article investigates the 2022 Yahidne war crime, during which Russian forces confined approximately 368 civilians, including 69 children, to the basement of the local school. Drawing on Jacques Derrida’s concept of hauntology, the authors explore satellite images of unfolding events and the enduring material traces of the occupation—drawings, abandoned toys, military rations, propaganda newspapers, spent military equipment and damaged infrastructure. They consider how these traces contribute to processes of collective memory and to the transformation of the site’s significance through public memorialisation, reflecting on the role of contemporary archaeology in documenting and interpreting material legacies of recent conflict.

There is increased public attention directed to the topic of weapons trade and this is a positive development because enhanced scrutiny holds a promise of bringing more accountability to the field that has long been obscure. This article reviews the possibility of criminal prosecutions of corporate officials for supplying weapons to Gaza, Yemen and Ukraine at the International Criminal Court (ICC) or a similar forum. The Nuremberg Trials planted seeds for such an endeavour by holding several industrialists criminally liable. Yet, modern international criminal law has so far largely stayed away from defining the scope of individual criminal responsibility for corporate officials. The case studies in this paper reveal that the moment is not ripe for commencing actual investigations at the ICC. Nonetheless, a future consensus is slowly building through (often failed) attempts to use legal or policy avenues to define the standards of conduct in the weapons trade.

Russia’s systematic deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories since 2014 is a central instrument of Russian governance. This article conceptualises the abduction of children as politicised captivity – the state-directed, long-term custodial control of a vulnerable population segment for explicitly political ends. The removal of children serves the strategic goals of exerting coercive pressure on local families, disrupting Ukrainian identity transmission, and facilitating demographic restructuring. Drawing on Foucault’s ‘biopolitics’ and Agamben’s ‘state of exception’, we analyse how institutional and legal mechanisms, from ‘recreation’ camps to streamlined adoption decrees, are employed to seize control over the identity formation and future political subjectivity of minors. Empirical findings, derived from witness testimonies and interviews, detail the operational pathways of transfer (e.g., filtration, holiday schemes) and the resulting experiences of psychological trauma, educational disruption, and ideological indoctrination. We argue that by targeting children, Russian authorities employ a sophisticated form of biopolitical control that is fundamental to maintaining and legitimising their long-term authority in contested spaces.

As Ukraine works to modernize its healthcare system and align with international standards, integrating health technology assessment (HTA) into the national decision-making process has become a strategic priority. While HTA practices for pharmaceuticals have advanced, substantial gaps persist in the evaluation of medical devices (MDs), which require distinct methodological approaches given their characteristics. This article presents the rationale, development, implementation, and results of a comprehensive online training program aimed at building national capacity in the MD assessment. The program targeted 71 Ukrainian professionals with prior experience in pharmaceutical evaluation but limited exposure to MD. Through 40 hours of live online sessions delivered from September to December 2024, the course emphasized interactive learning, contextual adaptation, and international best practices. Assessments showed significant knowledge gains, with 87 percent of participants completing the program successfully. The initiative demonstrates that targeted, competency-based training can enhance national HTA capacity and may serve as a model for other transitioning healthcare systems.

This article deals with the domestic politics of Estonia and Latvia after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It studies the cases of the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE) and Latvia’s National Alliance (NA). This piece concentrates on the cases of EKRE and NA with an interest in these parties’ formation processes, outlooks on identity politics, their stances vis-à-vis the EU and developments in international politics, and their relations with other political actors in Estonia and Latvia.

EKRE and NA anchor their ideological prerogatives in the longer trajectories of ethno-nationalism in Estonia and Latvia. However, whereas NA transformed into a party of the national conservative right, open to cooperation with centrist and centre-right partners, EKRE has remained a party of the radical right with a staunchly anti-systemic rhetoric and agenda. This particularity is largely to account for NA’s convergence with Latvia’s major parties on the increased securitisation of relations with Russia and EKRE’s divergence towards a rhetoric that urges a prioritisation of the national interest and a “pro-peace” stance vis-à-vis the war in Ukraine.

When a country sees multiple mass mobilisations over time, what accounts for variation in where protest occurs across the different protest waves? This article examines the case of mass protests in Ukraine 1990-2004, exploring how the emergence and development of activist networks aligns with changes in the geospatial dispersion of protest over time. It draws on archives and interviews with activists made available by The Three Revolutions Project, and newspaper reports from Ukrainska Pravda, Korrespondent.net and Radio Svoboda, utilising protest event analysis, along with QGIS software to visually represent findings. The article presents novel empirical findings on the geospatial scope of protest events across Ukraine from 1990 onwards, and demonstrates some of the ways in which regional activist networks expanded, developed, and sought cross-cleavage collaboration, aiming to facilitate increasing nationwide mobilisation. It provides valuable context for understanding subsequent Ukrainian mobilisation, such as the 2013-14 Euromaidan protest, and ongoing resistance to Russia’s full-scale invasion.

This research note investigates whether external military crises, short of war, in the neighbourhood of the European Union (EU) affects attitudes toward the EU. Specifically, I explore whether the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 fostered higher levels of trust in the EU and support for deeper integration among European citizens. Methodologically, I exploit the coincidental timing of the Russian annexation of Crimea on 18 March, 2014 with the fieldwork of the Eurobarometer survey (81.2) conducted in the spring of that year. The quasi‐experimental evidence establishes that European citizens who were surveyed after the Russian annexation became more trusting of the EU and presented a greater willingness for further European integration, particularly so among EU‐15 members. Moreover, the treatment effects were strongly moderated by individuals’ education levels, with the intervention exerting its greatest effect among the higher educated.

In recent years, observers have raised concerns about threats to democracy posed by external support for authoritarianism coming from regional powers such as Russia, China and Venezuela. This article assesses the efficacy of autocracy promotion through a close examination of Russian efforts to shape regime outcomes in the former Soviet Union. It finds that while Russian actions have periodically promoted instability and secessionist conflict, there is little evidence that such intervention has made post‐Soviet countries less democratic than they would have been otherwise. First, the Russian government has been inconsistent in its support for autocracy – supporting opposition and greater pluralism in countries where anti‐Russian governments are in power, and incumbent autocrats in cases where pro‐Russian politicians dominate. At the same time, the Russian government's narrow concentration on its own economic and geopolitical interests has significantly limited the country's influence, fostering a strong counter‐reaction in countries with strong anti‐Russian national identities. Finally, Russia's impact on democracy in the region has been restricted by the fact that post‐Soviet countries already have weak democratic prerequisites. This analysis suggests that, despite increasingly aggressive foreign policies by autocratic regional powers, autocracy promotion does not present a particularly serious threat to democracy in the world today.

As participatory governance approaches to local development get adopted also in transition countries, one of the key questions is how participation actually impacts local governance outcomes. This study examines the link between non-electoral participation and different public goods outcomes in rural Ukraine along with identifying the role of community-based organizations (CBOs). Using a unique survey data from Ukraine, I approach these questions empirically explicitly distinguishing between different public goods outcomes. I find that participation appears to be positively associated with local school and water supply outcomes. In addition, CBOs are found to be associated with better quality of water supply systems motivating a discussion about establishment of service cooperatives for water supply as a functional local governance arrangement.