Latest Articles about Central Europe
Saudis in the Baltic: Can Poland Break Its Reliance on Russian Oil?
The period between late 2021 to early 2022 was marked by two crucial developments that could potentially enable a quick and sharp reduction in Poland’s energy reliance on Russia. Aside from numerous gains for Poland itself, this outcome could prospectively be emulated by the other... MORE
Borrowed Boats Capsizing: State Security Ties to CCP Propaganda Laundering Rile Czech Public
New revelations on the laundering of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda through local actors in the Czech Republic point to an underresearched aspect of influence operations. The CCP’s tactic of “borrowing a boat to go out to sea” (借船出海, jie chuan chu hai), i.e., coopting local... MORE
Europe Is Talking to Minsk
On November 15 and 17, Angela Merkel, the outgoing chancellor of Germany, telephoned Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (RBC, November 17). While, on November 14 and 16, Belarus’s Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei had two phone conversations with Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign... MORE
Ukraine’s Troubles, Putin’s ‘Red Lines’ and Biden’s Warnings
Crisis is brewing yet again in the intrinsically antagonistic relations between Russia and Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin seeks to harvest richer political dividends from it than he did half a year ago. The apparent buildup of Russian forces near the Ukrainian border follows much... MORE
In Istanbul, Turkic Council Members Eye Closer Cooperation and Deeper Integration
On November 12, Istanbul hosted the eighth summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council), attended by the leaders of member states Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, and of observer states Hungary and Turkmenistan (Turkkon.org, November 12). The summit, dedicated this... MORE
Crisis on the Polish-Belarusian Border—What Strategy for Warsaw?
On November 8, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda held consultations in Warsaw with the government, military and border guard service regarding the artificial migration crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border (Prezydent.pl, November 8). The situation there has intensified, with 3,000–4,000 migrants gathered in the direct vicinity of... MORE
Lithuania and Poland Want to ‘Recover’ Kaliningrad, Russian Analysts Say
Since Soviet times, Russian analysts have mused about the possibility that Germany might try to recover Kaliningrad, or East Prussia as it was known before Joseph Stalin seized it at the end of World War II. Later, during the 1990s, they focused on the risk... MORE
Zapad 2021 Suggests, in Event of War, Moscow Could Seize Baltics but Lose Kaliningrad
Military exercises not only make known what a government believes could happen but become an occasion for its analysts and those in other countries to speculate as to what the outcomes of a real military conflict would be if the scenarios were to be applied... MORE
Nord Stream Two Construction Completed, but Gas Flows Unlikely in 2021
On September 10, the project company Nord Stream 2 AG informed that the last weld has been finished, making the Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline fully complete from a technical perspective (Nord-stream2.com, September 10). At the same time, speculation in the media began to... MORE
The Unstable Equilibrium of Belarus’s Political Crisis
The political crisis in Belarus seems to have entered the stage of unstable equilibrium both inside the country and along its perimeter. A system in this position accelerates away from steadiness if displaced even slightly. As Yauhenii Preiherman, who heads the Minsk Dialogue platform, opined,... MORE