Sign in

Giorgio Comai

@giocomai.bsky.social
70 followers 28 following 34 posts

Researcher, data cruncher, #rstats

PostsRepliesMedia
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Russia and the South Caucasus: why things have changed, really? Two factors in particular help understanding why things have changed, well beyond Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and long-term trends: 1. The foreign policy of countries in the South Caucasus has long been conflict-centred. Not any more.
100
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
In my latest article - www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Ru... I explore how some of my own findings confirm the centrality of the ideological circles at the centre of Juliette Faure's excellent book,"The Rise of the Russian Hawks: Ideology and Politics from the Late Soviet Union to Putin’s #Russia"
balcanicaucaso.org
The “Russian Hawks” and the Kremlin
Previously marginal revanchist intellectuals have been producing grandiose ideological theorisations, that are now at the core of state-sanctioned narratives legitimising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine....
110
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
"gli accordi di pace diventano ostaggi dei mutamenti geopolitici e rischiano di degenerare in un preludio a nuovi conflitti, sfollamenti di massa e guerre prolungate." Ora anche in italiano su @balcanicaucaso.org l'importante contributo di @olesyavart.bsky.social
011
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Important (and timely!) contribution by Olesya Vartanyan: > "Nagorno-Karabakh and the Collapse of Russia’s Peacekeeping Mission: What Weak Mandates and Absent Guarantees Can Teach Us" blogs.lse.ac.uk/crp/2025/07/...
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Nagorno-Karabakh and the Collapse of Russia’s Peacekeeping Mission: What Weak Mandates and Absent Guarantees Can Teach Us - Conflict and Civicness Research Blog
The recent failure of Russia’s peacekeeping mission in the South Caucasus underscores the necessity of a clear and robust mandate backed by coalition guarantees and aligned with international principl...
000
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
Interesting quantitative approach by Novaya Gazeta, although data are not published along with the article: > "Novaya Europe analysed almost 40,000 protests to see how Russia’s war in Ukraine has changed civil society" novayagazeta.eu/articles/202... #Russia
novayagazeta.eu
Picking your battles. Novaya Europe analysed almost 40,000 protests to see how Russia’s war in Ukraine has changed civil society — Novaya Gazeta Europe
Why don’t Russians protest? Politicians, political scientists and sociologists have all asked the question since the war began. But while the Kremlin has a well-oiled repressive machine in place for d...
000
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Why there shouldn’t be expectations about any breakthrough in the negotiations with Ukraine in Istanbul? In his famous Odnako programme on Russia’s First Channel, Leontyev explains: #Russia
121
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
What are the "root causes" of the conflict with Ukraine according to Russia? My latest structured analysis shows that in Kremlin-speech as of early 2025 they do not effectively relate to Ukraine, but rather to the world order and Russia's place in it: tadadit.xyz/posts/2025-0... #Russia
tadadit.xyz
Russia and the “root causes” of the conflict – tadadit.xyz
000
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
As Romanians flock to the polls, time to bring back my quantitative analysis showing the incredible density of Romanian polling stations in Italy: half of Italian residents could drive to a Romanian polling station in less than 35 minutes. codebase.giorgiocomai.eu/2019/11/26/o... #Romania 🇷🇴
030
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
OBCT @balcanicaucaso.org · 07/05/2025
Nessun tipo di concessione unilaterale ucraina, men che meno territoriale, potrebbe risolvere quelle che Mosca considera le radici profonde del conflitto: ristabilire attraverso la guerra lo status della Russia sia a livello regionale che globale. Un’analisi
buff.ly
Perché Kyiv non può risolvere le “radici del conflitto”
Nessun tipo di concessione unilaterale ucraina, men che meno territoriale, potrebbe risolvere quelle che Mosca considera le radici profonde del conflitto: ristabilire attraverso la guerra lo status…
021
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
"No amount of unilateral Ukrainian concessions would address what Russia considers the ‘root causes’ of the conflict." My latest: www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Uk... #Ukraine #Russia
balcanicaucaso.org
Why Kyiv cannot possibly fix the ‘root causes’ of the conflict
No amount of unilateral Ukrainian concessions would address what Russia considers the ‘root causes’ of the conflict. An analysis
132
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
Eduard Klein @edklein.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
This is a really unique & rich longitudinal dataset on #corruption in #Ukraine, that allows for analyzing developments and trends over 1.5 decades! I recommend all scholars working on this topic checking this outstanding dataset 👇
031
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
tadadit.xyz @tadadit.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Package: `quackingllama`. Basically, a llama that quacks like a duck (or, more technically, a package that relies on `Ollama` for interacting with LLMs, and on DuckDB for caching results). - giocomai.github.io/quackingllama/ #rstats
giocomai.github.io
Process text with Ollama, retrieve structured results, cache them locally in DuckDB.
Process text with Ollama, store results in DuckDB.
011
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
tadadit.xyz @tadadit.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
New post, in which I indulge in exploring categorisation of text with open LLMs, and along the way incidentally develop an R package to facilitate relevant workflows. Analysing Russian news via Telegram, processing them with open LLMs - tadadit.xyz/posts/2025-0...
tadadit.xyz
Analysing Russian news via Telegram, processing them with open LLMs – tadadit.xyz
Testing alternatives for investigating public discourse.
152
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
Bernardo Venturi @bervent.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Unfortunately, they didn't.
011
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
Months ago, in reference to the impending crisis in Transnistria, @bervent.bsky.social and I argued that "when buying time,it's important to make sure to use it wisely." Step 1: buy time Step 2: use it wisely We focused on step 2, but step 1 is of the essence www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Areas/Mo...
balcanicaucaso.org
Transnistria: when buying time, make sure to use it wisely
Russia’s gas subsidy – a key ingredient enabling Transnistria’s political economy – may remain in place for a couple more years, but its existence is based on increasingly shaky grounds. Chișinău is e...
000
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Pics from sessions I chaired at the #ASIAC annual conference on the Caucasus and Central Asia held at the University of Venice. Such a great conference... www.asiac.net/eventi/asiac... And Venice is something else, really. I'll see you all there in 2025, same location, same time of the year!
000
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
News from Abkhazia: problems with paying salaries, energy crisis, closing schools one week early due to lack of heating apsnypress.info/ru/home/novo... News from Transnistria: "state of economic emergency" declared novostipmr.com/ru/news/24-1...
apsnypress.info
Бадра Гунба: мы держим ситуацию под контролем
Сухум. 9 декабря 2024. Апсныпресс. Вопросы выплаты заработной платы, обеспечения топливом, вызванные энергетическим кризисом, обсуждались на совещании, которое провел и.о. президента Бадра Гунба. И.о ...
010
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
Discuss Data @discussdata.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Thank you, Giorgio, for archiving this huge data collection with Discuss Data! Scholars working on / interested in official #Russian discourse: this unique data collection provides a rich source with lots of material! The data is available here: discuss-data.net/dataset/0578...
discuss-data.net
This is a collection of full-text datasets based on contents extracted from the websites of Russian state institutions.
011
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Highly recommended job opening for a data journalist at Deutsche Welle jobs.dw.com/Vacancies/22... Small but growing team, great for #rstats folks. Check out some of their work: dw.com/data
jobs.dw.com
Deutsche Welle Job Offer: Data Journalist (f/m/d)
021
Reposted by Giorgio Comai
tadadit.xyz @tadadit.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Belated announcement that I have finally released an openly-licensed collection of textual datasets extracted from Russia's main government websites. Yearly update expected. tadadit.xyz/posts/2024-1...
001
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Thrilled to finally share the programme of Asiac's annual conference. It's really fantastic to see such a great line-up of scholars who will be sharing their insights on the Caucasus and Central Asia. See you in Venice in less than a month! en.asiac.net/2024/11/14/a...
010
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
End of the year is near, yet no arrangements about provision of Russian gas to Transnistria are in place. In my latest, I argue that Tiraspol should assume responsibility, and that Chișinău and EU should consider how the status quo may soon become untenable www.ispionline.it/en/publicati... #Moldova
ispionline.it
Transnistria Post-Ukraine Invasion: Economic Stability Over Security | ISPI
Without Russia’s gas subsidy, Transnistria faces the threat of an economic crisis and instability.
100
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 10/05/2024
Many important points in the recent Foreign Affairs piece by @gavinwilde.bsky.social et al. "Don’t Hype the Disinformation Threat" www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-fede... Sharing some of the same concerns, here's a book chapter I wrote: www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-... (open access)
taylorfrancis.com
Responding to Alleged Russian Interference by Focussing on the Vulnera
This chapter defines ‘Russian meddling’ as a distinct phenomenon that emerged at the time of the United States presidential elections in November 2016 based on
111
Giorgio Comai @giocomai.bsky.social · 22/08/2023
New post out about Prigozhin's audio files, transcribed. Post is methodological, but... if you read his spoken words transcribed and see just how unhinged his criticism of Russia's military leadership was, you may also understand how lack of rebuff was interpreted as support from the Kremlin.
070