Civil-Military Relations and Societal Mobilization in Wartime Russia : Institutional Dynamics and the Reconfiguration of Power

The study interprets Russia’s wartime governance as both an institutional and communicative system, in which language and symbolic practices serve to legitimise military authority and reshape the boundaries between civil and military domains: • How does Putin’s political discourse (2000–2025) reframe the relationship between the Russian state, the Armed Forces, and civil society during the protracted war in Ukraine? • Which tangible mechanisms (mobilisation decrees, regional volunteer units, Rosgvardiya expansion) and intangible factors (patriotic narratives, fear of dissent, corruption tolerance) have blurred civil-military boundaries? • What institutional adaptations (e.g., parallel command chains, private armies, “people’s militias”) reveal about the future civil-military balance in post-war Russia?