Publication

The two articles in this edition of the RAD examine 1) the first elections carried out in Crimea in over a century, and 2) the diverging perceptions the Kremlin and Ukrainian people have of each other. The first piece details, to no one’s surprise, how the United Russia Party dominated the 2016 Duma elections in Crimea, but it also notes that existing disaffection with the party’s local leadership could undermine its support in the future. The second article then highlights how Ukrainians have labored over the last 25 years to disentangle their history and national identity from that of the internationalist, Kremlin-dominated “friendship of peoples” model that existed before.