What’s the difference between colonialism and imperialism? What types of colonialism can we identify — and which of them are playing out in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other countries?
This conversation is not purely academic. It helps us better understand what’s happening today — and what might happen tomorrow. Russian colonial and imperial practices sometimes resemble those of other empires — but at other times, they differ significantly. Russia often masks its imperial violence with nationalist mythology. It’s important to reveal why that mythology is misleading — and dangerous.
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Host: Volodymyr Yermolenko, a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, and president of PEN Ukraine.
Our guest today is Botakoz Kassymbekova, a renowned scholar of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She is currently Professor of Eastern European History at the University of Zurich and specializes in Soviet history, Stalinism and post-Stalinism, and Russian imperial practices. She holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin.
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"Thinking in Dark Times" podcast is produced by UkraineWorld, an English-language media project about Ukraine, run by Internews Ukraine.
This episode is created in partnership with the Ukrainian Institute, the country’s leading cultural diplomacy institution.
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Your support is essential, as we rely heavily on crowdfunding.
You can also help us fund VOLUNTEER trips to frontline areas in Ukraine, where we support both soldiers and civilians.
Donations are welcome via PayPal: ukraine.resisting@gmail.com
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CONTENTS:
00:00:00 — Intro: what is colonialism and imperialism, and why does it matter now?
00:02:06 — Why Russia is an empire? What is the difference between colonialism and imperialism?
00:04:32 — Russia’s colonial tactics
00:07:44 — Why does Russia seek full control over Ukraine? Not just influence, but domination and assimilation.
00:09:55 — Difference vs. sameness: how empires shape identities
00:11:24 — Settler colonialism vs. extractive colonialism: what drives conquest?
00:16:30 — Russia as a settler empire: back then and now
00:18:22 — How Russia colonises its internal nations through assimilation and language suppression.
00:20:50 — Censuses, schools and silent erasure: how Russian state mechanisms classify and erase non-Russian identities within its borders.
00:23:00 — Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and the memory of famine
00:25:30 — Why colonialism is about state power, not ethnicity, and why Ukrainians were tools, not masters, of the Russian colonialism elsewhere.
00:27:42 — Soviet categorisation: Muslims vs. Europeans. How the USSR racialised and managed populations with a colonial gaze.
00:32:04 — Why Russia criticises Western colonialism while mimicking it.
00:34:57 — “Greatness” as the keyword of Russian imperial ideology. Territory as the imperial prestige
00:40:15 — Russia's strategic aims: bullying Europe for superpower status.
00:43:33 — Why the Soviet Union’s support for global decolonisation masked its own imperial domination.
00:45:15 — “Friendship of peoples”: a Soviet colonial tactic in disguise
00:50:10 — Nuclear tests, cotton fields, and poisoned generations: how Moscow exploited Central Asia
00:53:20 — Health and autonomy: why so-called “Soviet development” often meant suffering, not progress.
00:55:44 — Who decides? The colonial theft of political agency
00:58:12 — Why many Western scholars failed to see Soviet colonialism and still don’t.
00:59:21 — Final reflection: Ukraine’s struggle is part of a bigger story
