Thought-provoking conversations have been developing around the meaning and importance of rooted knowledges and non-extractive methodologies, around questions of inter- and intra-regional systems of oppression, and around the possibilities offered by situating our regions in global solidarities.

Over the three days of the conference, participants at #RUTA2026 have been brought together in person and online across dozens of panels, roundtables, art workshops, performances, film screenings, and exhibits. Photos by Tetiana Kozienko.

What started as endless zoom meetings between (almost) strangers united by a common vision of academia has grown into something beyond our wildest dreams.

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Day 1: Onto the second featured panel of the day! : "Beyond Troll Farms and Border Violence: Defying Disinformation and Dehumanization." Alongside its colonial aggression against Ukraine, Russia has been tightening its grip on Africa through a combination of military and hybrid tactics.

Eagerly listening to our #Ruta2026 featured panel on rooted and environmental knowledges, with Emine Ziyatdin, Kadri Tüür, Aigerim Kapar, joining us in Ukraine & @seyeabimbola.bsky.social from the unceded land of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation in Sydney with critical insights on global health

Calling upon our RUTA people: help us build the playlist that we will dance to! Our conferences are not only the places where we co-create knowledge in paradigm-shifting trans-regional ways, but the core spaces where we build community, meet on the dance floor and celebrate the power of RUTA music

With the deepest respect for the work that Oleksandra Matviichuk does, it will be an utmost honour to hear from her at #RUTA2026 and moderate this discussion. In her talks, she often speaks about the many different meanings that justice has for the many various members of the Ukrainian society… 1/2

THE FOLK(L)ORE Lviv Oblast, Ukraine

The opening ceremony of the International Conference of Ukrainian Studies, “Ukraine in the World”, at the Lviv National Opera. With @radityodharmaputra.bsky.social, listening to Alim Aliev speak about the importance of embedding Crimean Tatar Studies into the core of Ukrainian Studies

Our RUTA panel on non-hierarchical, epistemically just, trans-regional approaches to knowledge-making in academia. The power of having this conversation in Ukraine with seriously inspiring thinkers—Botakoz Kassymbekova, Martin-Oleksandr Kisly, Gražina Bielousova, Maria Sonevytsky, and Sasha Dovzhyk

With the core of Crimean Tatar Studies, art and literature: Emine Ziyatdin, Alim Aliev and Martin-Oleksandr Kisly Qırım serbest olacaq!

Looking forward to moderating this featured RUTA panel, which brings together journalists and researchers who are also activists, all working and thinking toward a much better world. This panel has been long in the making and fosters discussions that many of us have been having—now more collectively

RUTA team is in Ukraine @associationruta.bsky.social

And that mostly considers the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, rarely what preceded it since 2014, and crucially, the intergenerational transfer of trauma from the Soviet-manufactured famine and Stalinist crimes, as well as the genocidal annihilation and forced labour under German occupation

Room with a view . My Kyiv, today . . . Photo : Serhii Korovayny/Instagram , for @wsj.com

The Journal of Medical Ethics has retracted a paper on the use of AI in the pharmaceutical industry for containing references that don’t exist. The article’s sole author: a high school student.

“‘The government was not talking about healthcare or poverty’, one activist said. ‘Instead, they talked about protecting society from “gender propaganda’” This is a resonant experience across the Caucasus, Europe’s East, the Baltic and Central Asia where Russian disinformation is in overdrive

On the health impact of Russian colonialism and its genocidal violence: “As of December 2025, more than 80 maternity and neonatal care hospitals in Ukraine had been damaged or destroyed, according to U.N. statistics. Some cities have no maternity wards left.” 1/2 www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/w...

🕯Nnani Adaobi Merian, a 23 Nigerian medical student, has died from the injuries she sustained when Russia bombed Kharkiv on June 29th. The guided bomb had also killed her friend, fellow med student Fatima Huseynova. Both women had returned to Ukraine to graduate. 1/ suspilne.media/kharkiv/1347...

When Nazis tell you they are Nazis, believe them.

Join us today for this important and timely conversations on the struggles against gender rigid and authoritarian politics in Europe’s East, Central Asia and Latin America, and what solidarity across them might look like. 18:00 Kyiv and Vilnius / 17:00 Prague / 20:00 Astana / 9:00 San José

So much respect for Kateryna Zarembo. It’s been two years since we last met in person, and our last conversation was about the striking failures of Western feminisms to engage sincerely—and in a non-hierarchical manner—with Eastern European feminist voices, perspectives, agency, and lived realities

Much gratitude to fellow philosopher Melanie Altanian for organizing a seminar discussion on my book-in-progress, Nothing About Us Without Us: Justice and Knowledge Making, which takes a close look at context-specific patterns of epistemic injustice and genocide denial in debates about Europe’s East

A reminder that our next RUTA webinar is coming up on Friday We will discuss the struggles against gender rigid and authoritarian politics in Europe’s East, Central Asia and Latin America, and explore what these struggles share, where they diverge, and what solidarity across them might look like

Last day in the OSA archive. Found a 1970 headline that feels like a summary of the Soviet historical legacy in a nutshell

“For suffering to matter, for it to be news, for something to be done about it, it has historically helped if the pain being documented is politically convenient – a betrayal of the promise and ideal of humanitarian journalism.” aeon.co/essays/how-m...

This is ​Fatima, a sixth-year medical student at Kharkiv National Medical University. Russia killed her today. She came to the city for her university graduation. She was only 23.

“‘How to Tankie’ is the anti-imperialist’s guide for the modern world. This book guides you on correct ways to argue against colonialists, war-shills & imperialists in a manner that is unconstrained by facts, logic, reason, or consistency.” Mearsheimer, Sakwa & Mignolo might want to write a review

Important text by political theorist Petra Gümplová on how heatwaves should be understood as a form of climate violence: harm caused by human actions embedded in political systems that continue to sustain the dominance of the fossil-fuel model of energy production kapital-noviny.sk/extreme-heat...

Some useful leads here on how to help those impacted by the Venezuela earthquakes apnews.com/article/vene...

Actually, more like this We will soon be screening the documentary JARA: Radioactive Patriarchy – Women of Qazaqstan at the @associationruta.bsky.social conference in the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Aigerim Seitenova theconversation.com/radioactive-...

On point. Words by Olga Lautman

Our next RUTA webinar will discuss the struggles against gender rigid and authoritarian politics in Europe’s East, Central Asia and Latin America. We will explore what these struggles share, where they diverge, and what solidarity across them might look like. Join us for this timely conversation.

For those heading to Glohra Day, come say hi. My work will be showcased in the “Meet Our Members” session, and I’ve been invited to run an “Ask the Community” roundtable. I’ll be holding one on issues of health justice & wellbeing across Europe’s East–West divide www.globalhealth.de/news/view/sa...

On the Soviet mismanagement of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, the disaster caused by it, the systemic suppression of information about the impact of radiation by the same Moscow management, and the audacity to follow the necropolitics with a gaslighting poem and more nuclear testing in Qazaqstan

Lots of thoughts on how empires have systemically fostered the spread of diseases and epidemics as tools of genocide and colonial expansion

Join us for this timely conversation. The RUTA webinar on dialogues across Europe’s East, Central Asia, and Latin America is about to start

“…it really is a matter of life and death. No sentence, no paragraph, no novel can compare to that.”

Crucial reporting by Tatev Hovhannisyan on the repression of feminist activism by an illegitimate regime in Georgia “What keeps me going is knowing we still have each other”, she said. “Sometimes you don’t even need words. People understand each other’s pain.” oc-media.org/a-soviet-sty...

Join us tomorrow for our RUTA webinar “Rather than treating resistance as an export from the West's present crisis, we begin from the long memory of those who have been practicing it all along.”

This. And not only did Der Spiegel frame the Third German Empire’s invasion of the Soviet Union, over the Belarusian and Ukrainian lands and people as a “war against Russia”, but also as “Hitlers war”, perhaps in recognition of the so many Adolf Hitlers who participated in, supported, and enabled it

Now for an actually interesting Victor

Join our next RUTA webinar

Stanislav Menzelevskyi on Chornobyl cinema, ecology, technology and film in Ukraine, at the OSA Archivum Visegrad lecture series

RUTA is devastated by the scale of latest Russian attacks, furthering the transgenerational destruction and appropriation of Ukrainian culture, heritage, identity, and self-determination. We support Ukrainians in their striving for de-occupation, safety, accountability and justice for Russian crimes

Michał Murawski in Solidarity across fault lines: Is methodological (inter)nationalism possible at the Venice Biennale? A text that is highly worth reading. Michal will be following up on this analysis on our featured art panel at the Ruta 2026 conference in Ukraine artslooker.com/en/solidarit...

Thank you so much! I also dedicated a huge chapter in my latest book, “What does it mean to be Kazakhstani” precisely to this issue. More needs to be written and talked about though 🙏

The Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, originally founded in the 11th century, predates Moscow itself. Having failed to steal Ukraine's history and identity, russia is now trying to destroy it. This is genocide.