Alexander Litvinenko
Central/Eastern Europe

What’s on the label of a ‘terrorist state’? Everything.

Labels are important. For too long, the Western world preferred to ignore Russia’s crimes at home and abroad and look the other way. But no more. Last week, when the European Parliament labelled the Russian […]

Kyiv, summer 2022. Andreas Umland
Central/Eastern Europe

After the war

Ukraine, the West and democracy will prevail. Whatever Mr Putin does or does not do, despite his war crimes and nuclear threats, despite his bombing of Ukrainian cities and the violence of his repression even […]

Central/Eastern Europe

NATO and Ukraine

Last week, a number of important geopolitical developments took place: Putin finally revealed that he was in total desperation and rushed to announce that he was annexing not only the occupied but also unoccupied, and […]

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Lithuania
Central/Eastern Europe

The lonely people of Belarus on the margins of the EU-Lithuania political agenda

Two years after the fraudulent Belarusian presidential elections, the Belarusian constitution was changed on the initiative of Alexander Lukashenko, journalists and students have been sent behind bars for criticising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and there […]

Central/Eastern Europe

European Union: 13 empty chairs for Ukraine

The decision to grant candidate-country status to Ukraine is a necessary step towards strategic autonomy for the European Union in that it would demonstrate resolve on the part of EU member states to move away […]

Moscow
Central/Eastern Europe

The Russian Liberal Bias

Do not expect grassroots change to happen in Russia. A popular phrase spoken only half-jokingly by the residents of Moscow goes like this, “Moscow ends, and Russia begins at the Sadovoye Koltso”. Sadovoye Koltso, or […]