For more than a decade, openDemocracy’s oDR project has provided a unique space for voices from across Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It’s therefore with regret that we are closing oDR due to fundraising difficulties.

The project provided hard-hitting coverage of Russia’s war against Ukraine by journalists and researchers across the region, focusing on war crimes, human rights, rule of law, socio-economic conditions, reforms and the progressive agenda in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and beyond.

Led by editor Thomas Rowley, oDR focused on human rights and social rights alike – and did not shy away from controversial topics. In parallel, this coverage was published in Russian for audiences across the region.

“Across the media space, our editorial agenda was unique – high-quality, nuanced work that had both broad and specialist appeal, but which was led by the most committed journalists and writers from Ukraine, Russia and the wider region,” said Rowley.

The oDR team built a rich network of writers to cover grassroots opposition, labour rights, minority rights and the politics of art and media. They also painstakingly followed the threads of money and influence linking corrupt elites in the former Soviet countries to their enablers in the UK.

Uniquely, the team developed strong and consistent coverage of Ukraine following Russia’s initial invasion in 2014 together with Ukrainian journalists. As a result, oDR was ready to lead coverage through the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion and hire openDemocracy’s first Ukraine correspondent, Kateryna Farbar.

At the same time, oDR published insightful reporting from inside Russia and Belarus, including stories of Russian draft dodgers and why Russian citizens are returning to the country, and running analysis of how the Lukashenka regime is changing during wartime.

Its coverage also included original, long-standing work in the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Moldova, covering the blockade and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, the authoritarian surge in Kyrgyzstan and the aftermath of the cataclysmic ‘Bloody January’ protests in Kazakhstan in 2022.

openDemocracy’s CEO, Satbir Singh, said: “oDR has provided consistently high quality reporting that speaks to the reality of life under siege and provided a unique space to bring Russian and Ukrainian democrats together.

“I want to thank the oDR team for their courage, passion and talent, and for being bold, brilliant, impossible, inspiring, hilarious and creative in all the best ways. I hope we see oDR reborn and thriving before long.”

As openDemocracy's co-founder Anthony Barnett has said, oDR’s work is one of our greatest achievements. But we have struggled to find the funding we have needed to sustain it.

Over the past 12 months openDemocracy has asked its readers to support oDR as it has tried to build a sustainable future, and more than 1,400 of you responded with enormous generosity. Long-term funding still eluded us, however, and so the oDR team is leaving openDemocracy at the end of the year.

We hope that they will be able to continue their important work elsewhere, or at openDemocracy itself if future resources allow it.

The project will close on 31 December.