Overview: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus

In Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus challenges continue to exist for open society in many core areas including the judiciary, independent media, rule of law, and public health. Over a decade after the Soviet collapse, basic guarantees of human rights and public access to information remain threatened.

Despite the bloody civil war in Chechnya and the pervasiveness of institutionalized corruption, Russia has achieved some degree of economic stability. Such economic calm, however, does not offset the devastating epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and drug use and the country’s world-leading levels of incarceration. The government has centralized administrative powers at the expense of civil and political freedoms. Torture and ill treatment of people in police custody remain common practice. Independent media outlets continue to be co-opted by the state or squeezed into insignificance.

Ukraine is afflicted by many of the same problems, in particular deep structural inequities both in its governance and wider institutional landscape. The president operates in a soft authoritarian environment, and the judicial system is largely unreconstructed. Persistent corruption has stymied efforts to reverse years of declining or stagnant economic growth; as a result, there are few domestic resources available to adequately address the spread of HIV/AIDS and human rights violations.

In Belarus, the administration has earned international pariah status through years of human rights abuses, authoritarianism, and economic mismanagement. By restricting the scope and reach of the civil society sector, it has diluted the ability of citizens to effect change.

In Russia and Ukraine, OSI works closely with local Soros foundations and other NGOs to support initiatives on a wide range of issues, including:

• treatment, advocacy, and harm reduction services to help slow the raging HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics;
• legal reform;
• women’s rights, including reproductive rights;
• independent media;
• prison reform; and
• governance reform, in particular corruption.