Book excerpt: The remarkable opening of Siberia and the Russian Arctic to international social science research, starting in the early 1990s, has given rise to the spirit of cooperation, innova- tive partnerships, and the co-production of knowledge across boundaries and academic cultures. These interactions and the heartfelt relationships built by years of collabora- tions are now suspended or at least highly constrained after February 2022. This volume's essays explore various dimensions of the newly fractured North and of the war's impact that poses dilemmas to field practitioners. In this three-part volume, the first in the "Fractured North" series, scholars with decades-long experience in northern Russia document the breakdown of collegial relationships as state control has intensified. Early career professionals consider the ruinous impacts on their planned research trajectories and the new methods of "distant" anthropology. The volume includes several historical essays about the dilemmas that scholars encountered in the face of past repressive regimes and connection breakdowns, and what we might learn from how they dealt with these challenges.