We often hear about “red lines” in the news—political leaders find themselves entitled to draw and redraw the boundaries of what is acceptable on the world stage. Meanwhile, “red flags” work as a similar metaphor in everyday life, helping us navigate social norms, ethical dilemmas, and personal boundaries.

In Russia, politicians and public figures—perhaps more than elsewhere—constantly break, and shift these boundaries. Yet since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, ordinary people have increasingly found themselves entangled in these shifting lines and flags, both in private and public life. What was once implicit has become highly charged, often making it unclear what “can” be said, done, or thought. Navigating this landscape requires an instinct for both spoken and unspoken rules, but even then, contradictions and dead ends are inevitable.

We invite you to an open and informal discussion about how we set, recognize, and navigate social and ethical red lines in public—and what happens when they are crossed, triggering red flags.

To kick things off, speakers from fields where these tensions are especially acute—journalism, policy and research—will share brief insights from their own experiences. They’ll explore a deceptively simple question:

How do you recognize and establish red lines and red flags in your field? How do you deal with them? And where have they failed?

Speakers: 

• Stefan Dudek, social anthropologist

• Ekaterina Martynova: editor at DOXA Journal

• Lilia Voronkova, social anthropologist, Russian civil society researcher

• Dmitry Vachedin, journalist and German politics expert

• Irina Ivanova, art manager and producer at Pikene på Broen

Moderators: Yakov Lurie (UvA & PS Lab), Oleg Pachenkov (CISR Berlin)