Russian President Vladimir Putin is the great survivor of European politics. Western leaders come and go, but Putin has persisted. He has managed to hold on to power for nearly two decades, through three foreign wars, two economic crises, multiple presidential and parliamentary elections (of varying degrees of fairness), a series of leadership reshuffles, the rise and fall of oil prices, and successive waves of economic sanctions. […]
The Russian presidential election will take place in a month, but the winner is already clear. The only candidate capable of receiving wider support from voters, Alexey Navalny, has been banned from registering as a candidate due to his criminal record, stemming from a fraud conviction he views as illegitimate. Accordingly, the question now is not about what kind of elections these will be, but what they will mean for Vladimir Putin’s fourth term. In other words, what will the Putin 4.0 system look like? What challenges will it face? […]
Many of us have probably encountered or at least have heard of an undisciplined next-door-neighbour with a fondness for drinking. Let us call him Vovochka (the Russian equivalent of “Little Johnny”, a diminutive form of […]
Edward Lucas, the former senior editor of the Economist, visited Vilnius on January 10th — once again, should we say. He lived in Lithuania in the Nineties and is such a frequent commentator and visitor in Lithuania that he even speaks the language a bit. His work has been revolving around Russia for so long that he has become a synonym for Russophobia, an accusation he is sharing with the three Baltic States. […]
Today, it is generally accepted inside NATO that the events of 2014 marked Russia‘s turn towards an avowedly revisionist course, whose ambit extends well beyond Ukraine itself. Were it not for Moscow’s justification of its […]
Recently we have been looking for an Idea for Lithuania. However often they are created in a vacuum where it appears that Lithuania does not live surrounded by various friendly or unfriendly neighbours which have various interests. Those ideas, however good, do not include geopolitics and international relations, upon which the development of our state greatly depends. […]
Russia’s president has awarded the Medal of Alexander Pushkin, a state decoration, to Valerij Tretjakov, editor-in-chief of Lithuania’s Russian-language weekly newspaper Litovskij Kurjer. […]
In 1947, following his return to Washington after the negotiations with Stalin and Molotov in Moscow, George Marshall, the famous US military leader and post-war Secretary of State, saw the need to promote economic recovery in Western Europe destroyed by war. This was seen as a stabilising factor and the only way to halt Stalin’s ambitions of expanding his political dominance to Western Europe. […]
Gay men fleeing persecution in Chechnya have found refuge in Lithuania: Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius confirmed to BNS on Wednesday that two persons who suffered repression in the southern Russian republic have come to Lithuania. […]
Russia is named as the biggest threat to Lithuania’s national security in the annual State Security Department’s (VSD) report to the public. It tries to assert its global power and aggressively interferes in other countries’ […]
Over the two days of this weekend we got to see how our Eastern neighbours are living and how far we’ve come from them. And we are gaining distance at a rapid pace. Those participating […]
Former US vice-president Dick Cheney has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened international security and had “designs on the Baltics.” […]
Antanas Guoga, Lithuanian member of the European Parliament, has been included into the list of persons unwanted in Russia. […]
On the 25th of March the European Union turns sixty. Congratulations are in order for the EU and for ourselves! […]
The United States should not completely abandon cooperation with Russia, but it must be remembered that Moscow poses a threat, Democratic Senator Richard Durbin said in Vilnius on Tuesday. […]
2017 could be the year of Russia’s return – the signs of this were discussed in a Tuesday afternoon discussion organised by the the Eastern Europe Studies Centre (RESC) and VU TSPMI. The political scientists discussed the topic of “What will decide Russian foreign policy in 2017?” It is likely that the government rotation of the West, the resolution of the stalled Syrian conflict and strategic changes to the Russian tone will open opportunities for de-escalation and Putin’s return as a figure that is repulsive for many, but at the same time – an inevitable partner in resolving questions in the international political arena. […]
It‘s a country where the average annual salary has dropped by almost a tenth and is now on not much more than 400 euro (compared with Lithuania where it just passed the 600 Euro mark). It‘s a country where the average pension is around 179 Euro – practically one third lower than in Lithuania). It‘s a country where ministries forecast increased economic stagnation for the next two years while the President’s office states that nobody is any the wiser. […]
How will Trump’s victory affect the world? And Lithuania? Lithuanian leaders hope that he will continue current American policy and will not sell Lithuania to Putin. Meanwhile some political scientists warn that it is no […]
There are indications in the US election campaign that other states are meddling in the presidential race, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius said on Thursday, referring to Russia. […]
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