"Crossed Wires: How Geopolitics Misserves Russian Civil Society"

Opinion piece in today's Moscow Times

“[…]This blurring between geopolitical jockeying and ostensibly altruistic support for civil society abroad is what compelled me into activism in the first place.

This conflation has become only more pervasive since then. It has not made geopolitics better: we are embroiled in the largest war in Europe since WWII and witnessing unprecedented levels of armed violence in Israel and Palestine. It has left civil society worse off: less safe and free, with its activists estranged from their communities and less able to achieve the liberal-democratic gains ascribed to them. This applies to Russia and many other countries, adversaries and allies of the West alike. 

It is therefore appropriate and necessary to audit the ideas and policies that have brought us to the current nadir. “

To read the full text on the Moscow Times Opinion page, click here. It wasn’t easy to cover this much ground - and squeeze so many years of growing unease - in so few words.