De Facto explores the realm of unrecognized states, fictional countries and curious border zones. On September 22 we had a great evening with talks, art and music at De Roode Bioscoop in Amsterdam.

Declaring that Russia would annex four regions of Ukraine, which the West rejects as illegal, the Russian president accused the U.S. and its allies of ‘despotism’ and ‘Satanism’.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to illegally annex four partially occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine lurched forward Tuesday, as Russian officials and Kremlin proxy leaders claimed that staged referendums showed that more than 95 percent of voters want to join Russia — an absurd level of support.

The De Facto team is heading to the Architecture Biennial in Timisoara (Romania). Floor Koomen and Jorie Horsthuis will give a talk about unrecognized states, curious borders and micronations and will participate in a debate with Theo Deutinger and Giovanni Comoglio. Join us for this event!

Remember to reserve your seat for our upcoming event on September 22 at the Roode Bioscoop in Amsterdam. An evening with talks, art and music. With former correspondent Joeri Boom about Kashmir, a flag for a unified Korea and music from unheard places by Dusty Stray.

The Kremlin wants to return to the age when Russia dominated its neighbors across Eurasia. Instead, it’s driving them away.

Armenia has said nearly 50 of its soldiers have been killed in clashes along the border with Azerbaijan, in the worst escalation of hostilities since a 2020 war.

A Chinese couple plotted to set up a mini-state on the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, bribing MPs and officials along the way, US prosecutors say. The man and woman tried to persuade lawmakers to set up a ‘Semi-Autonomous Region’ (SAR) on a remote atoll.

For the first issue of the recently launched European Review of Books De Facto’s Floor Koomen wrote a contribution on places in limbo. Notes from Bir Tawil (unclaimed), Transnistria (claimed) and Nutopia (unclaimable).

De Facto explores the realm of unrecognized states, fictional countries and curious border zones. On September 22 we organize a live evening with talks, art and music at De Roode Bioscoop in Amsterdam. Join us!

De Facto Territories is a regular column by De Facto’s Floor Koomen on Source Type, a new platform on Typographic Research & Visual Literacy. The series will be exploring the relationship between design objects, politics, and territories. The first column goes into the details on a Transnistrian stamp.

When Indians mark 75 years of independence this month, poet Zareef Ahmad and others in Kashmir may feel there’s not much to celebrate.

August 2022 is the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the war between the Georgians and the Abkhazians in the decades-long dispute over ownership of the small territory known to the autochthonous Abkhazians as Apsny and to the Georgians as apxazeti. This project aims to bring together different points of view on Abkhazia.

At the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST) the international group show Statecraft is still on show till October 30. The exhibition explores the underlying mechanisms at work in the engineering of the nation-state and the challenges it faces in today’s globalized, networked world. Curated by Katerina Gregos.

Statehood and sovereignty continue to be contested in a variety of ways throughout the world, resulting in protracted violent and latent conflicts in pursuit of self-determination, secession, and international recognition. At a conference in Innsbruck (August 22-26), scholars will interact about these themes in conceptual debates across various research traditions.

Panic has subsided — for now, at least — after a border dispute last week fueled fears that Kosovo and Serbia might be careening toward another war on European soil. Yet, locals downplay such possibilities. What happened, and what to expect next?

Thirteen years after he bought it, Uri Geller, a master of the grand gesture, has decided to elevate Lamb’s status from a private Scottish island to that of a country, with a flag, constitution and anthem. Settlement on the island itself is not allowed, its only inhabitants being puffins, guillemots and an assortment of other seabirds - and until recently a solitary rat.

New tensions erupted over Nagorno-Karabakh on Wednesday as three soldiers were killed and Azerbaijan said it had taken control of several strategic heights in the disputed region.

From her first days in Congress, Nancy Pelosi was willing to confront China’s leaders. As she looked toward her legacy, the California Democrat was not about to back down this time.

Kosovo’s government has postponed the implementation of new rules that would force people in majority ethnic Serb areas to swap their Serbian-issued car number plates for Kosovan-issued ones. This decision follows on clashes in protest over the new rules.

De Facto explores the realm of unrecognized states, fictional countries and curious border zones. On July 13 we had a great evening with talks, art and film at De Roode Bioscoop in Amsterdam.

In 2006, Gerard Beukeveld declared the independence of a piece of land less than three thousand square meters in size — a sovereign state on an industrial area in Coevorden (the Netherlands). Support poured in, but in short order the battle intensified. A curious encounter with the founders.

Since they first separated from Ukraine in 2014, a nexus of crime, corruption and rebellion has flourished in the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘People’s Republics’ as well as Russian occupied Crimea, a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found.

In a statement, the space agency said it ‘strongly rebukes using the International Space Station for political purposes to support its war against Ukraine’.

Mustafe decides to leave his quiet life in Finland when copper and gold are discovered in his ancestral land, Somaliland.

Coinbase’s former chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan wants to use social networks to create states. What doesn’t fit into his vision are things like poverty, illness and ageing.

The death toll among those who attempted to scale the fence into the Spanish enclave of Melilla last week continues to mount. With 29 dead, mostly sub-Saharan African, the figure, if confirmed, is among the worst-ever disasters for the Spanish enclave on the north Moroccan coast.

De Facto explores the realm of unrecognized states, fictional countries and curious border zones. On July 13 we organize a live evening with talks, art and film at De Roode Bioscoop in Amsterdam. Join us!

Canada and Denmark resolved a half-century-old border dispute, splitting the ownership of Hans Island, a 1.2-square kilometer mound of rock halfway between Nunavut and Greenland. The new border will divide the island roughly in half, following a natural ravine from north to south.

China has warned the US that any attempt to make Taiwan independent from China will trigger military action by Beijing’s forces. Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe met his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on the sidelines of an Asian security summit in Singapore.