Topic 7: The Occupation as a System: Historical and Conceptual Foundations

1. Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

The defining work on the 'bloodlands' — eastern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic states — as the site of deliberate mass killing and population destruction by both the Soviet and Nazi states. Snyder documents the Holodomor, the Great Terror, and wartime deportations as systematic policy rather than incidental atrocity. Essential for situating contemporary Russian actions in Ukraine within a long continuum of violence; his concept of deliberate demographic engineering as a tool of imperial domination is directly applicable to the post-2022 occupation playbook.

2. Naimark, Norman M. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

A comparative examination of ethnic cleansing across twentieth-century Europe, including Soviet deportations of Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and other minority groups. Naimark argues that ethnic cleansing is not a by-product of war but a deliberate strategy of state building and territorial control — a framing highly relevant to Russian actions in occupied Ukraine. Accessible and widely cited; excellent for framing any analytical section on Russia's demographic engineering.

3. Naimark, Norman M. The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945–1949. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

A landmark archival study of Soviet occupation of eastern Germany documenting systematic rape by Red Army soldiers, forced labour extraction, seizure of industrial assets, and the weaponisation of education and culture to enforce 'Bolshevisation.' Provides direct historical precedent for all components of Russia's occupation playbook in Ukraine: sexual violence as policy, cultural re-education, demographic extraction, and exploitation of civilian industrial capacity. The chapter on Soviet soldiers and German women is directly relevant to the CRSV typology.

→ Also relevant to Topic 3: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence — historical pattern of sexual violence as systematic feature of Red Army conduct.

4. Martin, Terry. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Analyses the Soviet state's paradoxical promotion and then violent suppression of national identities. Martin's concept of 'ethnoterritory' and his documentation of mass deportations of groups deemed security threats are foundational for understanding how Russia's treatment of Ukrainians fits within a longer Soviet logic of identity management. Directly relevant to the passportisation and Russification analysis in occupied territories.

→ Also relevant to Topic 5: Passportisation and Property Seizure — Soviet ethnoterritory logic as precedent for Russification policy.

5. Pohl, J. Otto. The Stalinist Penal System: A Statistical History of Soviet Repression and Terror 1930–1953. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.

Comprehensive statistical analysis of Soviet deportation and labour camp systems, documenting the mechanics of population transfer including the deportation of entire national groups — Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Koreans — and the use of 'special settlements' as instruments of demographic control. Provides the quantitative baseline for comparing the scale of historical Soviet deportations with contemporary Russian practice in Ukraine.

6. Burds, Jeffrey. 'Sexual Violence in Europe in World War II, 1939–1945.' Politics & Society 37, no. 1 (2009): 35–73.

A comparative analysis of wartime sexual violence across all WWII theatres, documenting sexual violence as a systemic feature of Red Army conduct — not exceptional soldier behaviour but part of a broader culture of occupation. Critical for situating Russia's current use of sexual violence in Ukraine within a deep historical pattern, and for the argument that such violence is a strategic tool of occupation rather than incidental.

→ Also relevant to Topic 3: Conflict-Related Sexual Violence — foundational comparative analysis of wartime sexual violence as Soviet policy.

7. Galeotti, Mark. Putin's Wars: From Chechnya to Ukraine. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2022.

A comprehensive account of Russian military operations from the First Chechen War through to the 2022 full-scale invasion, identifying recurring patterns: proxy forces, 'humanitarian corridors' used for population control, Russification of occupied territories, and the use of coercive civilian management. Accessible and authoritative; essential for the argument that Ukraine 2022 follows a template rehearsed across Georgia, Chechnya, and Syria.

8. Fridman, Ofer. Russian 'Hybrid Warfare': Resurgence and Politicisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

A rigorous academic analysis arguing that 'hybrid warfare' as a concept often obscures more than it reveals, and that Russian operations combine old Soviet 'active measures' with contemporary information and coercive tools. Useful for critically challenging whether existing hybrid warfare frameworks adequately capture coercive population management — including forced labour and trafficking — as a strategic instrument.

9. Renz, Bettina. 'Russia and Hybrid Warfare.' Contemporary Politics 22, no. 3 (2016): 283–300.

Examines the contested concept of 'hybrid warfare' as applied to Russia, questioning whether it captures genuine doctrinal innovation or relabels longstanding Soviet practices. Useful for the meta-argument that security studies frameworks need to incorporate human exploitation — slavery, trafficking, forced militarisation — as deliberate components of occupation strategy rather than collateral effects.

10. Allison, Roy. 'Russian "Deniable" Intervention in Ukraine: How and Why Russia Broke the Rules.' International Affairs 90, no. 6 (2014): 1255–1297.

A detailed analysis of Russia's initial 2014 intervention in eastern Ukraine, examining how Moscow used deniable proxies, local collaborators, and fabricated pretexts to achieve territorial objectives. Published in International Affairs, this article provides a landmark precedent for empirically-grounded Ukraine analysis and frames Russian intervention as deliberate rule-breaking within the rules-based international order.

11. Libiseller, Chiara. 'Hybrid Warfare as an Academic Fashion.' Journal of Strategic Studies 46, no. 4 (2023): 858–880.

A critical review arguing 'hybrid warfare' has become an academic fashion obscuring analytical precision. Provides a scholarly anchor for the argument that new frameworks — drawing on slavery and trafficking studies — are needed to capture the coercive population exploitation that security studies has consistently under-theorised.

12. Dodds, Klaus, et al. 'The Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Implications for Politics, Territory and Governance.' Territory, Politics, Governance 11, no. 8 (2023): 1519–1536. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2023.2256119.

A multidisciplinary scholarly roundtable bringing together ten leading researchers to examine the implications of Russia's full-scale invasion for territorial sovereignty, democratic governance, and the international security order. Provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical framework for understanding the political and legal dimensions of Russia's aggression and the governance of occupied territories.

13. Watling, Jack, and Nick Reynolds. Russian Military Objectives and Capacity in Ukraine Through 2024. RUSI Commentary. London: Royal United Services Institute, February 2024.

Documents that by early 2024 the Russian Operational Group of Forces in occupied territories comprised 470,000 troops, and that Putin's February 2024 decree absorbed four partially occupied Ukrainian oblasts into the Southern Military District. Establishes the institutional context within which forced conscription, forced labour, and passportisation operate as planned elements of administrative consolidation — not random wartime abuses.

14. CEPA. Behind the Lines: Russia's Occupied Territories — Project Portal and Tracker. Centre for European Policy Analysis, ongoing.

A multi-year research project tracking life under Russian occupation across Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson through a searchable, oblast-by-oblast tracker updated in near real-time. Documents Russia's systematic 'colonising tactics' including population replacement, forced identity changes, and Russification programmes. The primary aggregation source for the lived conditions under occupation that, accumulated, constitute the conditions of enslavement under the Kunarac factors.

15. Panasiuk, Kateryna. 'Coercion and Control: Life Under Russian Occupation.' CEPA, 2024.

Field report from Skadovsk, Kherson Oblast documenting systematic coercions: forced passportisation of children aged 14, exclusion from medical and legal services without Russian citizenship, severed evacuation routes, forced vehicle re-registration. The constellation of coercions — denial of medical access, property rights, freedom of movement, and civic participation — constitutes precisely the 'deprivation of liberty' and 'control of physical environment' that the Kunarac factors identify as indicia of enslavement.

16. CEPA. 'Behind the Lines: Russia's Struggle to Colonise Ukraine.' CEPA, April 2025. https://cepa.org/article/behind-the-lines-russias-struggle-to-colonize-ukraine/

Documents deliberate destruction of local economies in occupied territories — only 15 of 114 Donetsk mines operating; all industries in Melitopol shut down, leaving only military jobs. The deliberate destruction of the local economy means the only available income is Russian military service — creating a coercive economic environment where 'voluntary' conscription is structurally forced, meeting the ILO definition of forced labour under 'menace of penalty' including the penalty of destitution.

17. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.

The classic comparative sociology of slavery, developing the concept of 'social death' — the stripping of identity, community ties, and legal personhood from enslaved individuals. Patterson's framework is directly applicable to Russia's occupation practices: passportisation (enforced legal re-identification), Russification (identity stripping), filtration (social sorting and elimination), and deportation (uprooting from community).

→ Also relevant to Topic 2: The Enslavement and Forced Labour Frame — core conceptual framework in the critical modern slavery debate.

18. Phillips, Gervase, and Laura Sandy. 'Slavery and the "American Way of War," 1607–1861.' Comparative Studies in Society and History 63, no. 4 (2021): 807–844.

Argues that slavery and warfare were 'inextricably intertwined' in the history of Britain's North American colonies — slave raiding was not merely a by-product of conflict but a strategic objective. Provides the conceptual argument that security studies has historically neglected the relationship between slavery/exploitation and warfare, treating it as peripheral when it is central to many systems of territorial control.

→ Also relevant to Topic 2: The Enslavement and Forced Labour Frame — core entry in the critical modern slavery debate.

19. Azarov, Denys et al. 'Understanding Russia's Actions in Ukraine as the Crime of Genocide.' Journal of International Criminal Justice 21:2 (May 2023), pp. 233–264.

Ukrainian and international scholars apply the Rome Statute's genocide framework to Russian actions, addressing the combination of mass murder with sexual violence against women and children as meeting the Krstić (ICTY) threshold for genocide. The genocide framework and the slavery/enslavement framework are complementary: genocide requires intent to destroy a group; enslavement as a CAH requires a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. The two charges co-exist and reinforce each other, as they did in the Yugoslav wars.

20. Matviichuk, Oleksandra. Nobel Peace Prize lecture: 'Time to Take Responsibility.' Oslo, 10 December 2022.

Matviichuk's Nobel lecture defines occupation in terms that map precisely onto the slavery framing: 'People living under occupation live in a grey zone. They have no means to defend their rights, their freedom, their property, their lives and their loved ones. Occupation is not just replacing one flag with another; when we talk about Russian occupation, it means forced disappearances, rape, torture, murder, denial of identity, forced deportations of Ukrainian children for adoption.' This is the closest any senior Ukrainian civil society figure has come to articulating the slavery frame without using the legal term.