Ekaterina Schulmann and Maksim Kurnikov Highlight the Challenges of Studying Russia While in Exile

By Bennett Murray, MALD 2026 Candidate, The Fletcher School

One of Russia’s most prominent independent pundits spoke at a Fletcher Russia and Eurasia Program panel discussion on October 15, 2024 about the difficult task of pulling information out of her increasingly closed-off homeland.

Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist whose YouTube channel is among the most-watched in the Russian language, was accompanied by Maksim Kurnikov, a journalist who heads the Echo, which is the successor of the legendary Echo of Moscow radio station.

Both Schulmann and Kurnikov have lived in the EU since the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They currently co-host a show on Echo that analyzes the latest developments in Russian politics and society.

In their talk, titled “Regime Stability and the Dynamics of Public Opinion in Russia: How to Study a Closing Country,” the two Russian thought leaders explained how they go about researching a nation where access to information grows more restricted by the day. Daniel Drezner, Distinguished Professor of International Politics and Co-Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at The Fletcher School, moderated the discussion.

“There’s a lot of mystifying going on… in which Russia is perceived as currently unknowable, a mystery wrapped inside of an enigma wrapped inside something else,” said Schulmann in her opening remarks. 

But she added that she is luckier than others due to the focus of her research. “I study bureaucracy, and bureaucracy leaves a paper trail,” she said.

She explained that her job has become more difficult in recent years as the Russian state has stopped publishing basic information that it used to publicize regularly. Simple data parameters, such as crime statistics and operational summaries of state industry, are no longer made available. A full 28 percent of the state budget is now classified.

But while Schulmann’s supply of official data may be dwindling, she can just as easily access it from abroad.

“So long as the State Duma electronic database, my favorite site on the internet, is open to me, even through a VPN, I’m able to carry on more or less the same thing,” she quipped, referring to the database of Russia’s legislative body.

She dismissed the notion that living abroad, unable to return, makes her less qualified to speak on Russia, a common criticism leveled at critics of the regime who sought asylum abroad. 

“If a political regime is closing down, it is closing down equally to people inside the country,” she said, adding that “You self-censor yourself before you are aware of it,” when you take the risks of remaining in Russia. 

“The romantic idea that you need to take a deep breath of native air and, I don’t know, chew a handful of native soil in order to understand how Russia’s heart is beating doesn’t strike me as scientific,” she argued.

Kurnikov noted that it was often independent Russian media based abroad that broke stories before journalists back home could do so, citing media coverage of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s attempted march on Moscow in June 2023 as an example.

And while Russian sources are extremely worried about being named in media reports, Kurnikov said that even powerful people in Russian officialdom were still eager to talk anonymously, including people inside the State Duma and the prosecutor general’s office.

Over the summer, Kurnikov said he traveled around Europe, meeting highly-placed Russian business leaders during their annual holidays to their prized vacation properties. They were extremely forthcoming, said Kurnikov, as long as their identities were shielded. 

“They are not just full of information; they really want to talk about it for hours and hours,” he said, speculating that these people saw it in their interest for the inner workings of Russian power to see daylight.

Above all, said Schulmann, maintaining vigilant research from abroad is vitally necessary to combat the efforts of state propagandists.

“You get an impression from them that Russia is a country of limitless resources that, unlike Western democracies which are tied to electoral cycles, has all the time at its disposal, that it can continue its current policies as long as it takes,” she said, adding that it, like all effective propaganda, is based on a combination of truth and lies. 

“It is important to at least try to discriminate between what they want you to believe, and what is actually true,” she said.