Gagging Runet, silencing society ’Sovereign’ Internet in the Kremlin’s political strategy. OSW Commentary NUMBER 313 | 4.12.2019

The Russian leadership views the Internet primarily as a battlefield of an information war, i.e. an alternative to military action in the context of the ongoing confrontation with the West. Kremlin regards Russian Internet users who spread content critical of the Russian authorities as ‘enemy soldiers’ in this war. Therefore, the government has stepped up its efforts to tighten control over the Internet by the intelligence services and law enforcement bodies. This manifested itself in a proliferation of preventive-repressive legal instruments as well as in an intensification of illegal practices targeting free expression, the secrecy of correspondence and unrestricted access to information. So far, the government’s strategy has had limited success. This is due, to a large degree, to the Russian segment of the Internet being well-integrated into the global network. Together with other technical factors this creates an obstacle for more extensive government interference Hence, circulation of information in social media remains relatively unrestricted while Internet users are increasingly unsusceptible to official state propaganda which is being spread by more traditional media outlets. In this situation, the continuation of the struggle against the freedom of the Internet may pose a political risk for the Kremlin by stoking protest among Russian public

The myth of the Great Patriotic War as a tool of the Kremlin’s great power policy. OSW Commentary NUMBER 316 31.12.2019

The sacralised Soviet victory over Nazism is a central element of the politics of memory, as utilised by the Russian state today. It constitutes an important theme in the Kremlin’s ideological offensive that is intended to legitimise Russia’s great-power ambitions. The messianic myth of saving the world from absolute evil is supposed to cover up the darker chapters of Soviet history and to legitimise all subsequent Soviet or Russian wars and military interventions, starting with Hungary, through Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan and ending with Ukraine and Syria. According to the current neo-Soviet interpretation, all these military actions were purely defensive and justified by external circumstances. The glorification of the “Yalta order” and the justification of the use of force in foreign policy is intended to legitimise Moscow’s pursuit of its current strategic aims, first and foremost of these being hegemony in the post-Soviet area and revision of the European security architecture. The war mythology and Russia’s great-power ambitions continue to resonate with the wider Russian public; thus contributing to legitimisation of the authoritarian regime in the eyes of a large swathe of society and offsetting the effect of growing socio-economic problems. The myth of a wartime ‘brotherhood of arms’ has a smaller impact on other post-Soviet states, which have increasingly been distancing themselves – especially since 2014 – from Moscow’s neo-imperial historical narrative. The use of historical myths as a form of soft power finds even less resonance in Europe and the US. Nevertheless, low susceptibility in the West to Russian historical propaganda does not diminish the gravity of the challenge posed by Russian information-psychological warfare, resorting to historical falsehoods and specious analogies between the current international situation and political-military tensions of the 1930s

The Solubility Parameters of Ionic Liquids

The Hildebrand’s solubility parameters have been calculated for 18 ionic liquids from the inverse gas chromatography measurements of the activity coefficients at infinite dilution. Retention data were used for the calculation. The solubility parameters are helpful for the prediction of the solubility in the binary solvent mixtures. From the solubility parameters, the standard enthalpies of vaporization of ionic liquids were estimated

Physico-Chemical Properties and Phase Behaviour of Pyrrolidinium-Based Ionic Liquids

A review of the relevant literature on 1-alkyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium-based ionic liquids has been presented. The phase diagrams for the binary systems of {1-ethyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium trifluoromethanesulfonate (triflate) [EMPYR][CF3SO3] + water, or + 1-butanol} and for the binary systems of {1-propyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium trifluoromethanesulfonate (triflate) [PMPYR][CF3SO3] + water, or + an alcohol (1-butanol, 1-hexanol, 1-octanol, 1-decanol)} have been determined at atmospheric pressure using a dynamic method. The influence of alcohol chain length was discussed for the [PMPYR][CF3SO3]. A systematic decrease in the solubility was observed with an increase of the alkyl chain length of an alcohol. (Solid + liquid) phase equilibria with complete miscibility in the liquid phase region were observed for the systems involving water and alcohols. The solubility of the ionic liquid increases as the alkyl chain length on the pyrrolidinium cation increases. The correlation of the experimental data has been carried out using the Wilson, UNIQUAC and the NRTL equations. The phase diagrams reported here have been compared to the systems published earlier with the 1-alkyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium-based ionic liquids. The influence of the cation and anion on the phase behaviour has been discussed. The basic thermal properties of pure ILs, i.e., melting temperature and the enthalpy of fusion, the solid-solid phase transition temperature and enthalpy have been measured using a differential scanning microcalorimetry technique

Badania nad epoką kamienia

Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 dofinansowane zostało ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę

Change and continuity. Traditions of the flint processing from the perspective of the Tążyna river valley.

Flint materials obtained during the excavations carried out in the middle section of the Tążyna river basin, Kuyavia, were the subject of the analysis in this book

Crisis in Russia. The degradation of the model of economic governance. OSW Studies 61, February 2017

The present economic crisis in Russia is conditioned above all by political factors. The crisis is proof of a serious dysfunction of the model of economic governance which is subordinated to the government elite’s individual interests. Because oil prices were at a high level until 2014, this model could work at a relatively low social cost

Russia marks the 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazism: What significance does it have in an epoch of global confrontation? OSW Commentary No. 171, 20 May 2015

The Victory Day celebrations held in Russia on 9 May 2015 were special for marking the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II but the particular international and domestic context they were set in was of yet greater importance. The element which set the celebrations in 2015 apart from those in the preceding years was how the military and moral aspects of Soviet victory over Nazi Germany was made part of the current geopolitical confrontation with the West concerning the Ukrainian crisis. The escalation of the aggressive rhetoric on Europe and the USA and accusations that the West is destabilising the international situation and striving for conflict was accompanied by a display of the increasing military power of the Russian Federation; the display itself was stronger than has been seen in preceding years. This was a clear sign that Moscow is ready to protect its national interests in the area of foreign policy by any means. At the same time, the creation of an atmosphere of threat and stoking patriotic feelings was intended to mobilise the Russian public around the political leadership while the country’s economic problems are deteriorating further

Selected legal aspects of management contracts.

Management contracts appeared as a form of an enterprise management when the era of market economy had dawned. The issues of management contracts are complex and multidimensional because they include economic, social, and legal aspects. The discussion below concerns selected legal aspects of management contracts which remain at the focus of the interest of private as well as public law. In order to determine the legal character of such contracts, the provisions of the Civil Code were analysed, in particular the freedom to contract, as well as the provisions of the Labour Code within the area of the employment relationship characteristics and taking judgements of the Supreme Court into account. Ultimately, the legal nature of a given management contract depends on the circumstances in a given case. The analysed selected provisions of detailed acts which the legislator regulated management contracts with indicate that these contracts are civil law contracts. From the standpoint of public law, in particular tax law, this decides about the manner of the settlement of income from such contracts with tax authorities. Natural persons providing services in person based on agreements concerning the management of an enterprise, management contracts, or similar agreements are or are not VAT payers depending on the legal relationship within which they provide these service