Almut Rochowanski is a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and an independent activist. For the past 20 years she has collaborated with grassroots civil society organizations in Russia, especially the North Caucasus, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Belarus, on a wide range of issues that were identified by grassroots activists as their priorities and/or existential needs: mobilizing resources; devising strategies and designing projects; learning; creating local and global networks; protecting themselves against threats. In the course of this work, much of it centered on women’s rights and feminist peace, she has engaged in refugee protection and asylum cases in the U.S. and Europe; grant–writing, grant–making, grant proposal review and advising grant–makers; organizing local and regional conferences and workshops for activists; mentoring young activists; strategic human rights litigation; and advocacy with policy-makers in the U.S., Europe, E.U. institutions and U.N. institutions. Her experience of working with international women’s peace organizations in Ukraine after 2014 led her to realize that the framework for civil society support increasingly reflects primacist, militarist agendas, particularly via foreign aid funding, and is therefore ill–suited for working towards peace, justice and liberation. She continues to support grassroots activists in the former Soviet Union, while contributing to critical analysis of Western foreign policy and foreign aid programs.