Alaska climate refugee champion Robin Bronen driven by a desire to protect humanity
Robin Bronen is driven by her desire to protect humanity.
This ambition steered Bronen to work as an attorney in Alaksa where she started out representing domestic violence victims. Her work with victims of abuse lasted until she decided she wanted a new challenge and joined the Peace Corps.
This new path led her to do agricultural work in Honduras.
As Bronen's time wrapped up in Honduras, her two trainers took her aside and opened the door to a new path. They told her to return to the U.S. and use her legal expertise to help immigrants there.
'They said to me … 'You now understand why people from our country are going to the United States, and we need you to help us there,'' Bronen recalled.
So, when her tenure with the Peace Corps ended, she returned to Alaska to work as an immigration attorney.
She spent 15 years in The Last Frontier working to realize her ambitions to protect people, but this focus shifted when she realized she wanted to address the climate crisis that was affecting her neighbors in Alaska.
Bronen co-founded the Alaska Institute for Justice in 2005 to focus on immigration issues in the state. The nonprofit added language interpretation and climate justice programs to help Alaska Native communities navigate mounting concerns in those areas.
Bronen announced her retirement as Alaska Institute for Justice executive director in September.
Her previous law degree wasn't going to be enough, so Bronen rededicated herself to graduate school to better understand climate science.
'I wanted to understand it myself, given what I was witnessing in Alaksa,' Bronen said.
The term 'climate refugees' was gaining popularity at the time, and Bronen was able to find the intersection of her immigration background with her new pursuit: working with Alaska Native Indigenous communities affected by the climate crisis.
It was my grandmother who fled Ukraine back in the early 1900s because she was Jewish, and so she and her family survived the pogroms. So, I grew up in this belief in needing to protect humanity from the ways that we can be unkind and unjust to each other, because she always believed in the goodness of people in spite of what she had lived through.
Honestly, our work is all about the people we serve and the communities we serve, and so my proudest moments are when we're able to serve people in the ways that protect their human rights and make justice happen for them as individuals or communities.
So, in the immigration realm, the first person I ever represented who was seeking asylum in the United States was a Russian-Jewish man who had been sent to Siberia, and I was able to represent him and get him political asylum in the United States. I felt like I was paying back my ancestors who were not able to stay where they were born.
To stand beside people who have been treated unjustly by our political, legal system and standing with them as an ally to help them get the resources or justice they deserve in the face of whatever opposition comes toward us.
I just found a quote by Cornell West that's all about love: 'Justice is what love looks like in public.' So that is my mantra.
I look up to the people and communities we serve. So right now, I am working mostly with Alaska Native Indigenous communities, and I look up to them for the wisdom and courage to keep having hope and faith that we will be able to withstand whatever the climate crisis is going to manifest in the places that we love and live.
I'm an avid runner, so I go running every day — pretty much six miles a day — to clear out that energy when I am confronted with challenges in doing the advocacy that we've done. Running is an incredibly creative process, so ideas always come to me of new angles to use to deal with whatever is presented as the challenge of the moment.
Some advice I wish somebody older than me had given me is that justice requires persistence and to be really creative in the strategies I use to advocate for the people in communities I serve. Change has not happened over the course of the decades I've been doing this work. That persistence and courage to keep advocating for those who need to have a voice beside them so their human rights are protected and they get the justice they deserve.
IndyStar's environmental reporting project is made possible through the generous support of the nonprofit Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Climate refugee champion Robin Bronen is Alaska's Women of the Year honoree
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CNN
31 minutes ago
- CNN
Putin promised to make Ukraine pay for its airbase attacks. What does he have left?
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Olha, a 67-year-old resident of Kyiv who asked to be identified only by her first name, told CNN that if Thursday night's strikes were Russia's retaliation, then Ukraine faces 'many such retaliations – once a month, even more.' Russia's response so far to Ukraine's extraordinary operation has raised questions about Putin's ability to escalate the war and exact the retribution that many of his supporters have clamored for. And it has left Ukrainians wondering if it has already felt the brunt of Russia's response, or if the worst is yet to come. In determining Russia's retaliation, analysts say, Putin has faced several constraints. One is political: Mounting a large-scale, innovative response to the 'Spiderweb' operation would be akin to admitting that Ukraine had inflicted a serious blow against Russia – an impression the Kremlin has been at pains to avoid, said Kateryna Stepanenko, a Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington DC. In a meeting with government ministers on Wednesday, Putin received a lengthy briefing on recent bridge collapses in Kursk and Bryansk, blamed by Russia on Ukraine. Yet, aside from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's reference to recent 'criminal provocations' by Kyiv, there was no mention of the 'Spiderweb' operation. In Russian state media's coverage of Putin's call Wednesday with Trump, little was made of the Russian president's pledge to 'respond' to Ukraine's attack. Instead, the reports focused on the outcome of recent peace talks in Istanbul. Stepanenko said this is part of a deliberate strategy. 'Putin is trying to make this go away and hide this failure yet again,' she told CNN. She said a high-profile response 'would contradict the Kremlin's strategic objective of making it all go away and sweeping this under the rug.' Putin has also faced material constraints. Whereas Russia's near-daily strikes on Ukraine used to involve just dozens of drones, they now routinely use more than 400. A day before Ukraine's 'Spiderweb' operation, on May 31, Russia launched 472 drones at Ukraine – a record in the three-year war, which was surpassed again during Sunday night's attacks, which used 479 drones. 'Russia's response is constrained by the amount of force they're constantly using,' said William Alberque, a former NATO arms control official now at the Stimson Center think tank. 'How would you know if Russia was actually retaliating? What would be more brutal than them destroying apartment flats or attacking shopping malls? What would escalation look like?' Russia's pro-war community of Telegram bloggers was not short of ideas. Some prominent channels said that Kyiv's strikes on Moscow's nuclear-capable bombers warranted a nuclear strike on Ukraine. 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In a sign that Moscow's 'retaliation' may be ongoing, Russia's Ministry of Defense said it had struck a Ukrainian airfield in the western Rivne region on Sunday night – a week after Ukraine's attacks on Russian airfields. The ministry said the attack was 'one of the retaliatory strikes' for Kyiv's 'terrorist attacks' against Russia's airfields, suggesting there may be more to come. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's air force, said the attack on the airfield was 'one of the biggest ever carried out by Russia.' Although air defenses 'performed very well,' he said it was 'impossible to shoot down everything.' Although Putin may be constrained in his ability to respond to Ukraine's spectacular operation with one of Russia's own, this may not matter on the battlefield, said Galeotti. 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Yahoo
35 minutes ago
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Russia plans to boost economic and military ties in Africa
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35 minutes ago
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Exiled Russian scholar on why Dugin is no philosopher, and Russia no defender of ‘traditional values'
In recent years, the Kremlin has sought to cast Russia as a bastion of so-called traditional values, positioning itself in stark contrast to what it describes as the morally decaying West. Yet beneath this veneer, a more complex reality persists. As exiled Russian philosopher Alexey Zhavoronkov told the Kyiv Independent, 'conservative rhetoric and concepts are employed to mask a different reality.' Within the framework of traditional conservative thought, personal liberty is regarded as a foundational principle. But in today's Russia, such freedom is markedly absent. As Zhavoronkov observes, those advancing the narrative of a 'conservative' Russia frequently do so less out of ideological conviction than opportunism — aligning themselves with the Kremlin to serve as de facto spokespeople for President Vladimir Putin's regime while also enriching themselves. Among those frequently cited as intellectual architects of the Kremlin's 'traditional values' worldview is Alexander Dugin, referred to in Western media as 'Putin's brain' — a title that belies the ambiguous and likely overstated nature of his actual influence. Dugin, who has openly called for the genocide of Ukrainians and maintains a network aimed at exporting his ideology far and wide abroad, presents himself as a philosopher. But as exiled Zhavoronkov explained to the Kyiv Independent, Dugin's work is marred by intellectual incoherence and lacks the philosophical depth required for serious consideration. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Kyiv Independent: Some right-wing contingents in the West claim that Russia is a last holdout for 'traditional values.' Could you go into more detail about the image that Russia is trying to project versus what is really happening there? Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept of 'traditional values' — and by that I mean the political use of the concept of traditional values — is very illustrative because there are hundreds of its interpretations in different documents and publications. If we look at official documents like Russian national development strategies, which offer lists of specific 'traditional values,' most of these values are not strictly conservative. We see notions like individual freedom, or we see something more associated with the philosophy of enlightenment (like the idea of human dignity) — meaning that traditional values are more along the lines of liberal thought. There are also certain concepts, such as collectivism, that were carried over from the Soviet period. Conservative values mentioned in Russian official documents are mostly centered around 'traditional family' — beyond that, there isn't much. This serves as a good example of how conservative rhetoric and concepts — sometimes even borrowed from Western traditions, which are officially condemned in Russia — are employed to mask a different reality. If we look at the conservative tradition in the U.S. and compare it to the Russian tradition, the differences are striking — they're two entirely different worlds. The Kyiv Independent: How so? Alexey Zhavoronkov: The differences exist on many levels, including political practice. But if we start with the theoretical side, the Anglo-American conservative tradition has a long and deep history. It doesn't begin as a reaction to the French Revolution (in the 18th century), but rather can be traced back to 15th- and 16th-century England. There's a lot to examine when analyzing this tradition. There was no major rupture in the American conservative tradition after World War II. In contrast, the Bolshevik Revolution (in 1917) in Russia effectively severed the continuity of the country's conservative tradition. In the U.S., there have certainly been political crises within the conservative movement, but the development of the tradition was never interrupted. Moreover, in the U.S., after World War II, much of the conservative movement was defined by anti-communism. Overall, if we look at major themes and the political policies associated with them, there's very little overlap between the Russian and American traditions. Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction. The Russian tradition faced multiple issues that differentiated it from the American tradition — which itself had internal problems, such as the split between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives since the 1970s. I'll return to that later, because I think there are some similarities between American and Russian neoconservatives, though only at the level of the international political agenda. As I mentioned, in Russia, we see a major interruption in the conservative tradition. There was certainly a conservative tradition before the revolution, though by the end of the 19th century, it was already in decline. It's also quite telling that as soon as the Russian (imperial) government, under Emperor Alexander III, officially adopted conservative rhetoric, conservatism as an intellectual movement practically disappeared. The government wasn't interested in serious programmatic works; it only needed slogans, which were mostly supplied by the official press. There were a plethora of newspapers and some journals that labeled themselves as conservative, but there were virtually no intellectual platforms for Russian conservatives. The golden era of Russian conservatism — associated with the Slavophile movement in the mid-19th century — was already long gone. It wasn't revived later under Emperor Nicholas II, and then came the revolution. After that, there were only limited attempts to revitalize the conservative tradition during the Soviet period, by figures like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for instance. There were also some more radical conservative, mostly Orthodox, movements during the Soviet period. But aside from a few collections of essays and Solzhenitsyn's publications, there were no major works that could be considered significant intellectual manifestos. So we are left to piece together fragments from various texts — texts that are neither philosophical in nature nor structured as political programs. I think the last truly meaningful intellectual exchange between Russian conservatives and Russian liberals was the debate between Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov in the 1970s and 1980s. Both of them had clearly defined (but incompatible) visions of Russia's future. Many aspects of that debate are either no longer relevant or problematic, such as Solzhenitsyn's idea of the nation. But still, it was a genuine (direct and indirect) debate that highlighted fundamental differences in how each thinker envisioned Russia's path forward over the coming century. The Kyiv Independent: Why do you think the Russian government following the USSR's collapse, chose the path of neoconservatism? Alexey Zhavoronkov: I think if we return to the issue of tradition, it's clear that there has been a break in its continuity. Contrary to what the Russian government suggests, this tradition has not been restored. Instead, the government is attempting something similar to what American anti-traditionalist neoconservatives aimed to do starting in the 1980s — namely, to formulate a global political agenda based primarily on the country's national interests rather than on international agreements and rules. These national interests are used to justify what I would describe as aggressive, even imperialist, policies aimed at establishing or maintaining dominance in various regions of the world. Of course, the economic weight of a country like the U.S. is incomparably greater than that of Russia. Russia represents only a small fraction of the global economy and is now largely isolated from many international markets. Therefore, the Russian government had to come up with a different kind of justification for its imperial ambitions. This justification has taken on a radical Orthodox form. This is where figures like Alexander Dugin come into play, along with many other ideologists who popularized the concept of 'Katechon' — which has become one of the key notions in Russian politics today. The Kyiv Independent: Could you explain what that is? Alexey Zhavoronkov: This concept enforces the idea that Russia is the world's sole and last protector against the Antichrist. Instead of American political and economic exceptionalism, which is manifested in (U.S. President Donald) Trump's policies, Russia has its own form of exceptionalism, but with different pillars supporting the ideology. For the U.S., the pillar is economic dominance, as seen in Trump's obsession with tariffs. For Russia, the pillar is spiritual or radical Orthodoxy, which contains strong elements of messianism. Russia sees itself as having a unique role in the world — it believes it should save the world, but it will save it by means of destruction. And to protect the world, Russia must be in a constant state of war with those who worship the Antichrist, namely with the 'Collective West.' The so-called 'Collective West' is another political concept actively used in Russian politics. The permanent state of war also means a permanent state of exception within Russia, because war serves as a perfect justification for almost any political action. In such a situation, established rules no longer apply. The government can always claim that it's an exceptional circumstance. The Kyiv Independent: You mentioned Alexander Dugin. Could you just go into who he is and how he came into prominence? In the West, they call him 'Putin's brain.' But his connections to Putin are highly debated. Does he have any real influence in Russia or is it just an outward projection? Alexey Zhavoronkov: Yes, Dugin is a really interesting figure from the perspective of how he's seen from the West. For a long time — even in Western political science — he was widely regarded as Putin's favored ideologist, someone with direct access to him and the ability to advise him on key issues. This was, of course, not the case. And this still isn't the case today, although Dugin has gained significantly more favor in recent years for various reasons, one of which is the murder of his daughter. I think Dugin is perhaps the most eclectic ideologist in Russia as of today. What he writes is mostly eclectic and situational commentary on what the Russian government does. At the heart of his 'philosophy' is the so-called Fourth Political Theory, a framework intended to create a new political ideology to replace existing ones such as Liberalism and Marxism. This idea is understandable on an elementary level, but there is no intellectual content in this theory. It consists only of slogans about the need to establish such a theory, without offering any clear explanation of what that theory should actually be. It's also evident that Dugin has no intention of developing it further, and neither do other ideological figures in Russia, largely due to the nature of Russian politics. Contemporary Russian politics — much like during the reign of Emperor Alexander III — has no need for intellectual manifestos. The role of ideologists is largely to retroactively justify actions already taken. Their task is to claim, for example, that they have long supported a particular policy or alliance, referencing something they wrote in a book a decade ago. The Russian government uses the strategy of fusionism. It has encompassed pretty much all movements that existed around it. Nowadays, we have Marxists and Stalinists who support Putin, but also traditionalists like Dugin, fascists, etc. This is a wild mix of people from diverse backgrounds who, in theory, should hold differing opinions — but in practice, they do not, at least not publicly. Many of them even collaborate within government-affiliated organizations, such as the Izborsky Club (a Russian think tank which Dugin is a member of, among others). What we see in Russia is an eclectic blend of very different ideologies, all loosely labeled as conservatism. To better disguise this inconsistency, Putin — or more accurately, his speechwriters — occasionally reference conservative literature, sometimes even theories by Western authors. Take, for example, Putin's speech from October 2021 — just a few months before the war began. In it, there's a noteworthy section where he offers a clear definition of conservatism. Interestingly, this definition closely aligns with liberal conservatism as understood by scholars like Michael Freeden and others. Conservatism, in this context, is portrayed as cautious progress based on principles of healthy realism and anti-isolationism, a framework of cultural relations that emphasizes respect for different traditions and viewpoints, aversion to extremism, etc. All the rhetoric about cautious decision-making, anti-isolationism, and respect for others stood in stark contrast to what unfolded just a few months later. It's clear that Putin aims to appeal to the more conservative segments of the Russian population — and indeed, many Russians hold culturally conservative views in their everyday lives. But ultimately, this conservative messaging serves to mask policies that are, in many respects, deeply anti-conservative. This is why I would label it as pseudo-conservatism — it mimics conservatism with the clear goal of making people feel more secure in turbulent times and fostering pride in their nation and government. However, in practice, what's actually happening has little to do with traditional conservatism. The Kyiv Independent: We see from here in Ukraine why people like Dugin are so dangerous. He has actively called for the genocide of Ukrainian people for years — that's what got him kicked out of one university back in 2014 or 2015, if I'm not mistaken. But what damage has he and others like him inflicted upon Russian academia over the past decade of war? What damage can they inflict abroad? Alexey Zhavoronkov: It's a really good question. I think Dugin's academic trajectory shows us that nowadays, the Russian government is seriously concerned with the issue of Russian academics not being too cooperative, for the most part. There's a set of statistics from 2022 that breaks down how different social groups relate to the war, whether they support it actively, passively, or oppose it altogether. The group with the least support for the war was Russian academics, which signals to the government that this is a significant issue. The government uses various means to control the excessively 'cosmopolitan' Russian academia. We see now that pro-government ideologists have been gifted their own institutes. Dugin now directs the Ivan Ilyin Higher Political School, an institute within the Russian State University for Humanities. This, along with other recent policies in education, is a signal to Dugin's colleagues from the same university and other institutions that they are now being closely watched. Naturally, this contributes to an atmosphere of paranoia and self-censorship. This self-censorship did not start in 2022. We do not have hard statistical data, but we still have some facts from recent history, like the dissolution of the Department for Constitutional Law at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow directly after the public debate concerning the necessity of the 2020 amendments to the Russian constitution. This action was not the government's initiative. The university itself decided to lay off leading scholars in constitutional law, de facto, because there was no living constitution anymore. The constitution was amended in a way that several parts of it were practically destroyed. People like Dugin contribute to the deterioration of the overall intellectual climate and the rise of self-censorship, which, I believe, is even worse than state censorship. In today's Russia, state censorship is more about punishing a few individuals, while the universities punish the other 200 people themselves out of fear. It's different from the Soviet Union, where state control was stricter and all-encompassing. Externally, Dugin makes an impression, partly because he has an army of writers, translators, and many supporters promoting his books in Europe and the U.S. I know several colleagues here in Germany, for instance, who were excited that there was supposed to be a workshop on Dugin's philosophy at the Danube Institute in Hungary and wanted to attend. However, after watching some of his videos, they started questioning what he was actually saying. They realized it wasn't philosophy but more like justificatory commentary on the Russian political agenda, filled with big slogans trying to align him with current policies. For instance, in his talk with John Mearsheimer, Dugin explicitly states that Ukraine should have been either neutral or part of Russia, and now Eastern Europe should be either neutral or "ours." Dugin gives the impression, externally, that he represents Russian philosophy today and embodies the intellectual majority among his colleagues, which is not the case. However, he is the loudest, with all the necessary resources and instruments at his disposal. While he presents himself as a traditionalist, he also uses capitalist tools to commercialize his ideas in the West, adapting his views depending on where he is. In this way, he reminds me of Trump a bit. If we look at some of the translations of Dugin's books, like the German or English versions, it's striking how much he tailors his message to please his European audience. In Russia, he often speaks of the 'collective West' or Europe as a declining culture, a culture that promotes degeneration. But for his German audience, he or his ghostwriters prepared an introduction to one of his major works that says something like this: 'Germany has historically been oppressed by the U.S., but I, Dugin, am fond of German culture and thinkers.' Indeed, his Russian publications frequently reference Hegel and Heidegger, although he never understands their ideas. However, for his Russian audience, he also emphasizes the need for authoritarianism or even totalitarianism. When appealing to a German audience, he avoids such statements, knowing they wouldn't resonate with his readers there. Instead, he tries to appeal to a broader public, not just the most radical circles, by presenting himself as a German sympathizer. Hi, this is Kate Tsurkan, thank you for reading this article. You might have noticed that none of our reporting is behind a paywall — that's because we believe that now, more than ever, the world needs access to reliable reporting from the ground here in Ukraine. To keep our journalism going, we rely on our community of over 20,000 members, most of whom give just $5 a month. Help us today. Read also: Aestheticized aggression — why Gosha Rubchinskiy's 'Victory Day' photo book is Russian propaganda We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
