In this volume from Olga R. Gulina, we are presented with a concise overview of the political dynamics and subsequent policies seeking to affect international migration in post-Soviet Eurasia from 1991 to 2018. Where many analyses only consider migration flows as they interest Russia, the primary labor market and host for refugees, Gulina incorporates data and accounts from twelve former Soviet republics, excluding the three Baltic states that are currently members of the European Union (EU). The book is inclusive of forced migration, paying close attention to refugees and asylum-seekers, while maintaining a focus on international labor migration, which represents the majority of contemporary migration flows. This provides the reader a more dynamic understanding of the variety of international migration flows among the post-Soviet states, as well as migration flows to the EU. With ambitious scope, Gulina argues convincingly that throughout the post-Soviet space, migration policies are not designed or implemented to facilitate long-term goals. Instead, despite the certainty of long-term issues like demographic decline, migration policies are largely reactionary and adjusted ad hoc to reflect the shifting geopolitical goals of the respective state.

To make her case, Gulina provides detailed accounts of the national-level policies implemented and migration data recently published from state bureaucracies and international institutions. Her analysis appropriately classifies three distinct periods of migration policy development in the post-Soviet space (19–27), as the capacity of states to pursue interests increased. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the first period sought to provide mobility to former Soviet citizens, whereas the second period reveals states seeking to monitor and establish legal parameters for international migration and migrants’ rights. A key political dynamic contributing to the second period is the lack of support for continued collaboration through multilateral migration agreements. This emphasis on national-level policy and bilateral cooperation leads to the third and current period, in which states seek to manage and regulate migration flows across their borders. The focus of the book is in this final stage, as Gulina emphasizes states utilizing migration policy to serve a variety of interests from foreign policy, like the tit-for-tat visa restrictions between Russia and Georgia (30–33), to humanitarian considerations, such as changing access to legal residence in Russia for Ukrainians displaced since 2014 by the conflict in eastern Ukraine (64–71). In her overview of cases, the analysis moves deftly from one bilateral exchange to another and demonstrates how national-level migration policies are altered for political expediency rather than regularizing migration.

Although the book touches on twelve post-Soviet states, Russia, Ukraine, and the EU receive their own chapters, with particular emphasis on Ukraine. Given the sustained upheaval of Ukrainian society in the wake of violence in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, the account of forced migration is timely and urgent as well as illuminating. Reflecting her thorough and comprehensive consideration of cases, Gulina covers the emerging policies seeking to provide access to employment for Ukrainian refugees in Belarus, as well as the contradictory and mercurial policy landscape for Ukrainian refugees in Russia (71–82). These sections clearly illustrate the political dynamics and motivations that Gulina argues are the norm in the post-Soviet space. Compellingly, the sixth chapter also considers “safe country of origin” designations by EU-member states, which seek to limit asylum-seekers by declaring requests from individuals fleeing from certain states as invalid. Despite a more regulated regional policy apparatus, EU member states vary in their official recognition of violence and discrimination in the post-Soviet space, emphasizing the difficulties forced migrants face in acquiring protection. Of particular note, though mentioned throughout the book, Gulina incorporates the migration policies and migrants generated by “frozen conflicts” in the post-Soviet space, which illuminates the legal and geopolitical interests at stake in migration policies recognizing these disputed territories and their respective populations. Though she notes the beneficial policy innovations supporting cooperation between Moldova and the contested region of Transnistria (101–102), Gulina is clear that there is little in the post-Soviet space that ensures the consistent political will necessary to achieve such successes can be replicated.

Due to the volume's brevity, it can only provide a brief overview of migration policies and trends in the post-Soviet space over the past quarter-century. This work will be helpful for anyone needing to orient themselves within recent dynamics and policy implications, particularly for post-2014 Ukraine. For those seeking a robust engagement with relevant theoretical frameworks or a specific in-depth case study within the post-Soviet space, there are other works that would likely be more useful.