Santeri participated in a panel discussion titled Military Chaplains in War and Peace with Fr. Sergiy Berezhnoy and Fr. Mikko Sidoroff at the conference Orthodox Christian Churches and War: Trajectories of Armed Conflicts and the Religious Construction of Adversaries in Joensuu from 25th to 27th September 2025. The lively panel discussion was chaired by Jarkko Kosonen and addressed topics of military ethics and military chaplaincy during times of war and peace. Santeri contributed to the discussion by clarifying the background of deepening church-military relations in Russia. He also attempted to assess the difficult question of Russian military priests’ significance in the ongoing war of aggression.
Santeri participated in a conference Regime Legitimation in Russia Under Putin organised as part of the research project Values-based Legitimation in Authoritarian Regimes: The Case of Russia (LegitRuss) in Sofia from September 12nd to 14th. During the conference, Santeri presented a work in progress that examines how Patriarch Kirill refers to apocalypse in the changing Russian political landscape. This research is a continuation of recently published work by Santeri on the concept of Katechon (see
The Mannerheim Working Group attended the XI ICCEES World Congress in London in July 2025 to present its research. Santeri Kytoneva presented his paper, "Demystifying neoconservative ideology production aimed at Russian military and security forces audiences." At a separate conference panel with Professor Yuliya Krylova-Grek, Katri Pynnoniemi and Amelie Tolvin presented their completed article "Kremlin strategic deception during the war against Ukraine." Finally, Viktor Lambin gave a presentation of his work in progress on the dehumanisation and enemization of Others in Z-Telegram.
In addition to presenting research at the conference, we visited the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) to discuss various relevant issues of the war in Ukraine with Nick Reynolds, research fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI. The visit was organised by our colleague Céline Marangé (Institute for Strategic Research, IRSEM, Paris).
A Hands-On Workshop in the Margins of the 2025
Are you ready to transform how we approach research in Russian studies? We invite you to join an innovative, interactive workshop that will show you how to use cutting-edge tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance and accelerate your research process—while maintaining academic rigor and transparency.
This event is a unique opportunity to explore exciting, hands-on applications of AI-driven methodologies tailored specifically to Russia-related research topics. It will be led by the two principal investigators of the large, multi-year
What You'll Learn
Through a real-world case study examining Russia's self-perceived military strengths and weaknesses (click
Why Attend?
Read more about this event
Dear all,
We invite you to participate in a workshop on Russian Enemy Propaganda organised by the Mannerheim professorship's working group.
The workshop aims to further research, establish connections, and discuss possible research projects. The workshop focuses on Russia's propaganda against Ukraine in the context of the ongoing war. We will talk about the identities of Ukrainian and foreign combatants and non-combatants which the Kremlin's propaganda attempts to construct for both domestic and foreign audiences.
We will have one session which includes a keynote presentation on Russia Today's representations of the Russia-Ukraine war and the identities of the key players by Dr Precious Chatterje-Doody from the Open University, UK.
Time: October 22nd , from 15:00 to 16:30.
Place: Metsätalo, C324 Humina, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 40.