Tag: civic society
Mapping Ukrainian CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic Region: Areas of Advocacy and Common Challenges
This policy brief maps Ukrainian civil society organizations (CSOs) active in the Nordic-Baltic region (NB8), based on a 2025 survey and discussions at the Nordic Ukraine Advocacy Summit. It highlights the diverse landscape of advocacy groups, ranging from long-established diaspora organizations to initiatives formed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The analysis highlights key challenges, such as the lack of coordination mechanisms, uneven access to political platforms, and limited technical capacity. Closer cooperation with policymakers and donors would benefit both sides, utilizing CSOs’ expertise in facilitating better integration of displaced Ukrainians and improving inclusive policymaking. It is important to recognize the role of Ukrainian civil society not only as a facilitator in the immediate support efforts but also as a strategic partner in shaping Europe’s long-term peace architecture.
Introduction
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused a massive migration of Ukrainians settling across the EU, including the Nordic-Baltic region. This movement gave rise to a wide range of new initiatives, including advocacy, cultural diplomacy, support for integration, and humanitarian efforts. Alongside long-standing diaspora organisations, these newly formed groups quickly became vital actors mobilizing resources, amplifying Ukraine’s voice internationally, and contributing to host societies. In light of these dynamics, it is worthwhile to understand how these organizations operate and what challenges they face.
To this end, the Nordic Ukraine Forum, with the support of the Swedish Institute, conducted a Survey of Nordic-Baltic Ukrainian Civil Society Organisations 2025: Mapping Areas of Advocacy, Structures, and Common Challenges between March and May 2025 (Zubkovych et al., 2025). This study examined Ukrainian CSOs active in both the Nordic-Baltic region (NB8) and Ukraine, based on a structured survey of 17 organizations (from an initial pool of 42). Notably, the survey focused exclusively on organizations with advocacy for Ukraine as a main activity, excluding smaller initiatives dedicated primarily to humanitarian relief, such as collecting clothes or food. Additionally, the output of the survey has been supplemented by the discussions and outcomes from the Nordic Ukraine Advocacy Summit (NUAS), held in Oslo in June 2025, with 30 participating CSOs. Together, these sources provide a unique empirical overview of the role and activities of Ukrainian advocacy CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic region.
Survey Results
Areas of Advocacy
The survey covers Ukrainian advocacy organisations based in the Nordic-Baltic region, where Sweden-based organisations or initiatives made up over half of the total respondents. The survey represents both long-established diaspora organizations and newer initiatives formed in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. About one-fourth of CSOs were established before 2014 (the earliest in 1997), while the majority were founded after 2022, reflecting the urgent mobilization of diaspora communities during the war.
Surveyed CSOs represent a broad mix of leadership roles, gender, professions, languages, membership sizes, and funding models. Most remain volunteer-driven and rely on short-term or project-based funding. More detailed demographic and organizational profiles can be found in the report by Zubkovych et al., 2025. Survey results show that Ukrainian CSOs in the NB8 focus on a wide range of areas. The most common activities include advocacy for Ukraine’s military support, cultural diplomacy and education, as well as support for displaced Ukrainians and their integration (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Focus areas of Ukrainian CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic region
Source: Zubkovych et al., 2025.
Many organizations also prioritize working with media, countering disinformation, humanitarian aid to Ukraine, and advocacy for Ukraine’s EU integration, followed by legal aid, human rights, and gender issues.
Figure 2 presents the main types of activity through which Ukrainian CSOs pursue their objectives. As shown, Ukrainian CSOs perform their tasks by raising social media awareness (82%) and organizing events in support of Ukraine (82%). Other key activities include demonstrations, media outreach, and direct engagement with policymakers. These findings suggest the need to examine more closely which social media platforms are being used, especially given the increasing risks of disinformation and propaganda.
Figure 2. Types of activities of Ukrainian CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic region
Source: Zubkovych et al., 2025.
Main Challenges
At the same time, the survey reveals the main challenges that Ukrainian CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic region have been facing (Figure 3). In particular, the respondents mentioned the absence of structured coordination mechanisms, which leads to duplication of efforts and uneven visibility.
For instance, while several groups in Sweden and Norway focus on humanitarian aid, their activities often run parallel rather than in partnership. The lack of common platforms or umbrella networks reduces their collective influence and makes it more challenging to articulate shared priorities to governments and donors. Without stronger horizontal coordination, CSOs risk competing rather than complementing one another in their advocacy and support work.
Figure 3. Main challenges for Ukrainian CSOs
Source: Zubkovych et al., 2025.
Funding emerged as one of the most pressing issues in the survey. Most organizations reported reliance on short-term, project-based grants or donations. Many CSOs lack multi-year funding, which makes strategic planning and staff retention almost impossible. This precarious situation often leads to volunteer burnout and creates uncertainty about the future of their programs. Donor practices have unintentionally exacerbated this vulnerability by neglecting the long-term capacity-building needs of diaspora CSOs.
The survey further highlights significant disparities in institutional access. Larger CSOs, particularly those based in capital cities such as Stockholm, Oslo, and Helsinki, enjoy greater visibility and are more likely to receive invitations to political consultations. By contrast, smaller groups in regions often remain excluded from policy-making processes, despite being closer to affected communities. This imbalance risks creating unequal representation, where only a handful of well-resourced organizations shape public debate, while others remain invisible. Respondents from Baltic states also pointed out that while they are engaged in cultural diplomacy and integration activities, they struggle to gain recognition from national ministries or international donors. The result is a fragmented advocacy landscape, where not all voices are equally heard.
Many organizations reported gaps in technical capacity, particularly a lack of specific skills in fundraising, project management, digital communication, lobbying, and public outreach. Additionally, the survey highlighted the dual role that Ukrainian CSOs currently play outside Ukraine. On one hand, they act as advocates for Ukraine internationally, lobbying for sanctions, military aid, and continued political support. On the other hand, they provide practical integration services for displaced Ukrainians, including legal counselling, language courses, housing support, and employment assistance. While both roles are crucial, this dual identity can create tensions. For instance, CSOs in Sweden and Finland reported that resources devoted to advocacy sometimes limited their ability to address integration needs, while groups in Estonia and Latvia noted that local integration demands risk overshadowing their transnational advocacy. Without clearer strategies or additional resources, CSOs may struggle to balance these functions effectively.
Conclusion
The survey of Ukrainian CSOs in the Nordic-Baltic region, combined with insights from NUAS 2025, highlights both their urgent needs and strategic opportunities.
For CSOs, strengthening coordination mechanisms is critical to reduce duplication and amplify their collective influence. Creating cross-border advocacy platforms and thematic working groups would help CSOs to better coordinate their activities, learn from others’ experience, and articulate common priorities. In particular, smaller CSOs would benefit from learning how to adopt effective communication strategies, diversify outreach through multiple platforms, and enhance engagement with local communities and institutional stakeholders.
At the same time, CSOs should invest in internal capacity: skills training in project management, advocacy, and digital communication can improve efficiency and increase funding opportunities. Finally, CSOs should balance their dual roles, such as supporting displaced Ukrainians locally while advocating for Ukraine internationally, by dividing responsibilities and tailoring strategies to avoid role conflict.
In turn, policymakers and donors may benefit from closer cooperation with Ukrainian CSOs. As documented by Anisimova et al. (2025), Ukrainian CSOs and civil society actors have already stepped in to fill gaps left by the public sector in the Nordic-Baltic countries. They have been facilitating labor market integration by offering mentorship, language support, and professional networks; improving access to information and bridging communication barriers between displaced people, employers, and municipalities. By recognizing and making use of Ukrainian CSOs’ experience, NB8 governments can develop more efficient mechanisms for integrating displaced populations. Furthermore, wider interaction with CSOs – including small local ones, currently underrepresented in the policy dialogue – may help coordinate with local communities and ensure inclusive policy-making processes.
Ultimately, it is important to recognize the role of Ukrainian civil society not only as a facilitator in the immediate support efforts but also as a strategic partner in shaping Europe’s long-term peace architecture.
References
- Zubkovych, A., Anisimova, A., & Adamson, E. (2025). Survey of Nordic-Baltic Ukrainian civil society organisations. Mapping Areas of Advocacy, Structures and Common Challenges.
Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.
Presidential Elections in Russia: Massive Vote Fraud Ensures that Legitimacy is in Doubt, but the Policy Direction is not
The March 4th, 2012, elections formally returned Vladimir Putin, the paramount leader of Russia since 1999, to the presidency. Despite Draconian restrictions on entry, financing, campaigning by other candidates, Putin’s dominance of TV, blatant use of state employees and funds to his own advantage, and significant vote fraud, the victory was underwhelming in the end. While the official tally was only 63.6 percent in Putin’s favor, estimates of his vote share by independent observers relying on networks of tens of thousands of volunteers were in the range of 49-57 percent of the turnout; even lower. (If his share was truly below 50 percent, a run-off vote would have to take place between Putin and the runner up) The second major outcome of the elections was the successful attempt by civic society to ensure a fair vote count in Russia’s largest city and capital, Moscow, where Putin’s official vote share (45 percent) on March 4th was the same that United Russia achieved in the December 4th parliamentary elections. (Generally, Putin polls much higher than United Russia.) The third outcome was the emergence of Mikhail Prokhorov, a billionaire with negligible experience in politics, as a major political force representing large cities and young educated voters.
The Success of Civic Society in Moscow and Vote Fraud Elsewhere
The central issue in the wake of the March 4th elections is the extent of fraud organized by the incumbent. Massive fraud during the December 4th parliamentary elections generated mass protests in response. In total, hundreds of thousands of Muscovites took part in four large rallies held during this winter. (No political rallies of comparable size, except for the state-sponsored pro-Putin ones, have taken place during the last 15 years.) A similar discrepancy between the actual vote and official returns was expected to generate even larger protests this time round.
Despite dozens of reported and video-documented cases of organized groups brought in to Moscow to vote multiple times and the presence of tens of thousands of observers, public outrage after massive vote fraud in the parliamentary elections last December is likely to have prevented the most outrageous and blatant forms of fraud during these elections. No less important, it is also likely that they generated less directly observable forms of electoral manipulation. Not surprisingly, for Moscow, the vote count by Citizen Observer, Golos, and other independent and highly respected observer organizations nearly coincided with the official election results, certified by the widely despised Central Election Commission (CEC). (Since December, the name of the head of CEC, Vladimir Churov, has become a synonym for incompetence and of fawning loyalty to the incumbent.) This does not mean, however, that no fraud took place outside the capital.
Figure 1. Cross-plot of the United Russia (Putin) vote share vs. turnout in the December 4, 2011, parliamentary elections and the March 4, 2011, presidential elections in Moscow. (Courtesy of Alexei Zakharov, HSE and Citizen Observer, using the CEC data.)
A side effect of the fair vote count on March 4th, 2012, in Moscow was that it highlighted the extensive centrally-organized fraud in parliamentary elections held on December 4th, 2011. (See the December 2011 issue of the FREE Policy Brief for a snap analysis of the parliamentary elections.) Figure 1 shows that the suspicious-looking relationship between the turnout and the Putin-led United Russia Party, highly visible in December (top figure), completely disappeared in March (bottom figure). Thus, the strong correlation between turnout and the United Russia vote share is a result of ballot-stuffing rather than anything else (theoretically, such a correlation might be caused by some socio-demographic characteristics of United Russia’s supporters). Similarly, Figure 2 exhibits a “normal” (Gaussian) distribution of total votes for United Russia/Putin by turnout (this is what should be expected theoretically, and is consistently observed in democratic elections around the world) on March 4th (bottom figure) and an unusual distribution, a result of changed voting protocols on December 4th (top figure).
Figure 2. Number of ballots by turnout in the December 4, 2011, parliamentary elections, and the March 4, 2011, presidential elections in Moscow. (Courtesy of Maxim Pshenichnikov using the CEC data.) Note the spikes on 70,75,70,85, and 90 percentiles on the left graph, a result of “targeting” by election officials. 
Outside Moscow, the situation was different. Across the country, independent observers documented ballot stuffing and manipulation of local vote returns. St. Petersburg, the second largest city in Russia with a population of just over 4 million and the cradle of the “Putin’s team”, is a case in point. The preliminary estimates, based on a (nearly random for these purposes) sample of 269 polling stations (which is about 12 percent of the total number of station in the city), shows that the actual vote share for Putin was 50 percent rather than the officially reported 65 percent, while for Prokhorov it was 22 percent instead of 14 percent, and for Zyuganov 15 percent instead of 11 percent in the official tally. These estimates are based on the comparison between the official results as certified by the Central Electoral Commission with official copies of vote protocols signed by accredited observers and members of local electoral commissions at the polling stations. In other words, the discrepancy is a result of vote fraud at the level of the territorial electoral commission instead of more conventional forms of fraud, such ballot-stuffing at polling stations.
New Faces of Russian Politics
Three of the four competitors against Putin on March 4th were veterans of Russian politics. The Communist party Chairman, Gennady Zyuganov, lost presidential elections to Boris Yeltsin in 1996, Putin himself in 2000, and to Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s figurehead “heir,” in 2008. (In 2004, the communists ran a minor candidate). Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a perennial nationalist candidate for presidency since 1991, has maintained a parliamentary faction for his one-man party for 20 years, but has never come close to winning the presidency. Sergei Mironov, a former Putin ally (in 2004 he ran for presidency with the announced goal “to help Putin win presidency”), was the main beneficiary of the December 4th, 2011, vote when many people supported his party primarily for the reason that parties they would have otherwise voted for were banned from participation. By official tally, Zyuganov got 17.2 percent (2nd place), Zhirinovsky 6.2 percent (4th place), and Mironov 3.9 percent (5th place). Despite the fact that these three have been on the ballot for a long time, they have never succeeded in presenting a genuine alternative choice for Russian voters at the polls and therefore posed no serious threat to Putin’s authority.
Mikhail Prokhorov, the 2nd richest person in Russia according to Forbes, ran a campaign that was watched warily by both Putin in Kremlin and Putin’s opponents in the liberal camp, and came in 3rd place with an official total of 8.0 percent. In Moscow, his result was even more impressive with 22 percent of the vote, second only to Putin’s 45 percent. While Prokhorov certainly benefited from the absence of Grigory Yavlinsky, who failed to clear the (unheard of in democratic countries) requirement to collect 2 000 000 signatures, and other liberal politicians, his results exceeded the previous combined returns of the liberal parties and candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000. The success of his candidacy have raised doubts on a long-held assumption in Russian politics that a rich, not to mention very rich, candidate has no chance of gaining traction in popular vote.
Another new face in Russian politics, Alexei Navalny has a law degree, business background, and was a member of the leadership in the Yabloko party (expelled in 2007) before becoming a famous blogger and shareholder activist in the beginning of 2010. His blog (navalny.livejournal.com) is now one of the most popular blogs in Russia, with more than 66,000 followers. A major boost to its popularity was the “Rospil” project that focused on protecting minority shareholders of large state-owned companies (and, by extent, on the management of the taxpayers’ property by the Putin government). Navalny used his blog to organize large-scale petitioning and litigation campaigns related to corruption in state-controlled companies. As a result of these activities, Navalny was described by the BBC in 2011 as “arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years.” (Obviously the BBC has not foreseen the rise of Prokhorov.) After December 4th, 2011, Navalny became a major leader of the protests and organizers of election observers.
“Staying the Course”
President-elect Vladimir Putin will start his new 6-year term in difficult times. The election raised questions about his true legitimate level of popular support, yet there is little doubt that he does not face any viable alternative challengers in the near future. Given that Putin has proven himself extremely rigid in the choice of policy and personnel (he would not get rid of close subordinates even if wide-spread corruption allegation would make them a visible drag on his popularity), the new government is not expected to be radically different from the current one (which features most of the ministers serving for 5-10 years in their current capacity). His anointed prime-minister is not a new face either. Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president for the last 4 years, is not expected to bring forward any major policy changes.
Fortunately for Putin the opposition is not organized and cannot settle on any particular message or alternative policy direction, let alone viable leader. The protest movement during the winter of 2011-12 was characterized more by decentralized leadership, featuring a number of prominent literature, arts, and entertainment figures. With its goal to ensure fair elections, it has, however, united a very diverse group of smaller movements ranging from radical young communists to libertarians despite its not having provided an alternative leader to Putin. In the end, the outcome of the March 2, 2012, presidential election has ended the myth of a significant Putin majority, casted considerable doubt on his legitimacy and has shown that Russians seem hungry for a change. It has, however, also left a big question mark on what the opposition’s next steps are and who the alternative could be.
▪