My research examines how authoritarian governance reshapes environments, societies, and migration patterns across post-Soviet spaces. One branch focuses on environmental inequality and politics in Russia, analyzing how resource extraction and pollution intersect with ethnicity, regional disparities, and Indigenous territories. I investigate how environmental degradation functions both as a consequence and as an instrument of state power, deepening social inequalities. The second branch explores the demographic and political consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine. I analyze the unequal distribution of wartime male mortality across Russian regions, showing how predatory conscription policies disproportionately target impoverished and ethnically diverse areas. In parallel, I study the lived experiences of relokanti—Russian political migrants who fled the country following the invasion and conscription announcements—through fieldwork in the Republic of Georgia. This work examines how extraterritorial authoritarianism, family pressures, and economic precarity shape migrants' strategies of silence and disengagement. Both strands of my research are united by a central concern with how authoritarian systems create and sustain inequality—whether through the management of natural resources or the control of people—and how these processes are felt and negotiated on the ground. Currently, I am developing book projects that delve deeper into environmental injustice and migration in post-Soviet spaces. 

My research has been recognized with prestigious awards and grants and has appeared in journals such as Society and Natural Resources, Qualitative Sociology, and most recently in Environmental Sociology journal.