Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has significantly reconfigured organised crime across Ukraine and neighbouring regions. Rather than simply disrupting illicit networks, the war and resulting sanctions have displaced and reshaped them. The most visible changes have occurred in the drugs market. Synthetic drug production has increasingly relocated to Kazakhstan, while trafficking routes for heroin and cocaine have shifted towards Belarus, Central Asia and the Balkans.

Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)

Erica Marat (NDU)

April 2026

Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine has produced a powerful internal shock that is transforming the country’s criminal landscape and the way the state deploys repression. This briefing note draws on wider research that demonstrates how the war has created a ‘boomerang effect’, whereby, the war has made Russia both more criminalised and more repressive.

Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)

Erica Marat (NDU)

March 2026

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reconfigured organised crime, displacing and transforming networks across regions. Crime has grown in both neighbouring states and Russia itself, with new actors, routes and cyber‑enabled methods emerging. War and sanctions act as systemic shocks, expanding illicit markets rather than suppressing them and demanding multi‑level policy responses.

Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)

Erica Marat (NDU)

March 2026