Fletcher Eurasia Club Lunch Seminar: Maxim Krupskiy and Stanislav Stanskikh on Russian Civil Society

Stanislav Stanskikh

Visiting Scholar

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Stanislav Stanskikh is Russia’s constitutional scholar in exile, human rights and anti-war activist, and legal expert on post-Soviet country conditions for U.S. immigration cases. After graduating from Lomonosov Moscow State University School of Law, he worked at the Government Relations Department of TNK-BP (Fortune 500) and served as the Executive Director of the Russian Foundation for Constitutional Reforms and founding Deputy Editor-In-Chief of the Russian Constitutional Court’s academic law review, among other positions. He was involved in civic protests and the anti-corruption movement in Russia, being an outspoken critic of Russia’s personalistic regime, the annexation of Crimea, and aggression in Ukraine. The escalation of repressions against intellectuals, human rights activists, and political opposition led to Stanislav’s political emigration from Russia to the U.S. He has been playing an active role in Russia’s democratic diaspora providing expertise to the Free Russia Foundation, the Free Russia Forum, and other diaspora organizations. In 2020, he initiated a popular petition campaign against amendments to Russia's constitution. Currently, Stanislav is a Research Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill and a member of the Post-Communist Politics and Economics Workshop at Harvard’s Davis Center. As a legal expert on country conditions, he closely collaborates with the Law Offices of Palant&Lust.

Maxim Krupskiy

Visiting Scholar

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Maxim Krupskiy is a human rights defender, attorney, and Ph.D. (Candidate of Science in Philosophy) with more than twelve years of law practice in Russia defending refugees, civil activists persecuted by the Russian authorities, and NGOs recognized as "foreign agents." Throughout his professional career he has specialized in the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Since 2011, Krupskiy has represented clients in cases related to migration law (refugees and asylum seekers), including cooperation with the UNHCR. Since 2014, he has defended dozens of civil activists persecuted by the Russian authorities for participating in peaceful public events (demonstrations and pickets), including representing their interests at the ECHR. Since the adoption of "foreign agents" laws in Russia, he has represented many nonprofit human rights organizations in court, in cases challenging their inclusion in the "foreign agents" register and in cases of bringing them to administrative responsibility for violating "foreign agents" legislation. Over the past six years, as an independent expert, he has prepared more than forty independent anti-corruption expert opinions in the field of migration, administrative, environmental, criminal, criminal procedural legislation, and legislation on nonprofit organizations. His Ph.D. research, "The phenomenon of social anomie in a contemporary society," examines the role of NGOs and other forms of civic activism in creating social connections that are resistant to the challenges of modernity. Using the example of Russian society in a state of social entropy and bifurcation, he has shown that one of the main ways to overcome such a state can be social consolidation on the basis of the spontaneous civic activity of individuals.