Promoting European strategic sovereignty in the eastern neighbourhood
The EU’s tendency to shy away from security issues has helped make covert operations and military threats Russia’s tools of choice in the region
Eastern Partnership
Lessons from Belarus: How the EU can support clean elections in Moldova and Georgia
The EU should make use of its significant leverage in Georgia and Moldova to counter their ruling parties’ extensive repertoire of electoral dirty tricks
Belarus and Armenia: How Russia handles uprisings
Russia’s goal in its neighbourhood is to regain influence, not to be surrounded by neutral, self-sufficient buffer states
Belarus should remind us to believe in freedom’s power
However uncertain the road ahead, these protests show how authoritarianism ultimately subverts itself
The Armenian model for Belarus
While many Western observers have seized on Ukraine's 2004-5 and 2014 revolutions to understand the mass protests in Belarus, a much better analogy is Armenia's democratic transition in 2018.
Russia’s military manoeuvres at the Belarus border – a message to the West
The Kremlin knows that intervening militarily would lose it the goodwill of the Belarusian people. But it does not rule out a managed transition to a candidate of its choice.
Why the EU now needs a deliberate Belarus policy
A new mass civic movement has emerged in Belarus – the EU should put supporting it at the heart of its new policy towards the country
The EU’s strategic sovereignty starts in Eastern Europe
The real test of the EU’s power and its strategic sovereignty will be in how it deals with external problems – not least those in its neighbourhood
Ukraine and the oligarchs: Endless delays to reform
The coronavirus has hit Ukraine hard, but the IMF has promised the country less funding than seemed likely only months ago. Self-interested oligarchs are delaying necessary new reforms and pushing back against those Ukraine has already made.
A problem shared: Russia and the transformation of Europe’s eastern neighbourhood
Failure to strengthen Eastern Partnership states could strengthen Russia and allow authoritarianism to diffuse westward into the EU