16.4.2026 | Vortrag "From Russia with Love: Transnational Corruption and Sanctions Bypass in the Ukraine War" – Aljona Wandyschewa

Vortrag im Rahmen des Seminars Umkämpftes Gedächtnis | Erinnerung konfrontieren / Contested Memory | Confronting Memories

Working language: English. Q&A: English/Russian. The speaker will join online, while the discussion will take place in a hybrid format with participants attending both in person and online.

The war in Ukraine takes countless lives, yet it also opens new opportunities for those who exploit conflict for profit. In Russia, the full-scale invasion combined with entrenched state capture has created ideal conditions for reallocating resources to regime loyalists. This process strengthens corruption networks at both federal and regional levels, fuels more sophisticated money-laundering and sanctions-evasion schemes, and enables authoritarian actors to export these practices worldwide. The global spread of such corrupt tools illustrates the logic of authoritarian learning.

To effectively counter these illegal practices, researchers, civil society, and policymakers must rely on data from investigative journalism and academic research. This seminar will explore the following issues:

• How Putin’s elite enriches itself through the war in Ukraine • Shifts in corruption levels in Russia since the invasion • How sanctions-evading global networks operate (with a focus on the Garantex case) • The new face of Russian money laundering and sanctions evasion • Links between the nationalization process and corruption • The role of civil society in countering corruption despite mounting risks.