The DNR and LNR international networks after annexation: what does the ‘abolition’ of these de facto states reveal about the changing nature of Russian power?
After the annexation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk “People Republics” by the Russia Federation following the sham referenda of September 2022, what remains of the materialities of statehood that these separatist leaders have sought to establish since 2015? This analysis of the trajectories of the representative offices of DNR and LNR will unpack the transformative dynamics of those entities’ de facto statehood in light of their subsequent integration with the parent-state. This combines elements of paradiplomacy with hybrid practices of international engagement, including the role of transnational cause-entrepreneurs.
Meet the Speakers and Chair
Sophie Gueudet works as PeaceRep Ukraine’s post-doctoral researcher. A historian of war and conflict, she specialises on separatism and secession, contested states and unresolved territorial conflicts, and civil-military relations in intra-state wars in Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Her current research agenda deals with the effects of the war against Ukraine on Russia's constellation of client de facto states.
Mariia Shynkarenko is a Research Associate in Ukraine in European Dialogue program at the Institute for Human Science (IWM) in Vienna. She is a political scientist, who specializes on questions of resistance, nationalism, and identity. Specifically, her research focuses on identity and resistance of the Crimean Tatars both historically and contemporary. Mariia received her PhD from the New School for Social Research in 2023.
Luke Cooper (@lukecooper100) is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations and the director of PeaceRep's Ukraine programme, based at the Conflict and Civicness Research Group in LSE IDEAS, the LSE's in-house foreign policy think tank. He has written extensively on nationalism, authoritarianism and the theory of uneven and combined development, and is the author of Authoritarian Contagion; the Global Threat to Democracy (Bristol University Press, 2021).
Ukraine in Global Context is an online event series run by PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme.
The LSE Conflict and Civicness Research Group (@LSE_CCRG) is part of LSE IDEAS, the foreign policy think tank for the London School of Economics and Political Science. Through sustained engagement with policymakers and opinion-formers, LSE IDEAS provides a forum that informs policy debate and connects academic research with the practice of diplomacy and strategy.
This event is organised as part of our work for the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), an international research project on peace and transition processes in the 21st century led by the University of Edinburgh Law School and funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
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