Latest Articles about Poland
A Dexterous Move Propels Saakashvili Back Into Ukraine’s Political Limelight
What occurred on September 10, at the Medyka-Shehyni crossing on the Polish-Ukrainian border, is remarkable. Earlier that day, Mikheil Saakashvili, the third president of Georgia and a Ukrainian opposition politician, declared his intention to reenter Ukraine after having been deprived of his Ukrainian citizenship on... MORE
Russia’s Energy Monopoly in Central-Eastern Europe Under Siege
The question of where to secure dependable energy supplies for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe was notably broached during United States President Donald Trump’s July visit to Poland. During his meeting with regional leaders in Warsaw, Trump stated that fast-growing US natural gas... MORE
Belarus Gains New Friends, While Lukashenka Retains His Popularity Region-Wide
Minsk is winning over Belarus’s neighbors. “We have stabilized our relations with Belarus… Today, there is no ideological war between our countries,” declared Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish minister of foreign affairs. This statement is impressive, particularly against the backdrop of Poland’s relations with Ukraine, which... MORE
Joint Baltic Rail Venture Attracts Wider Regional Interest
Rail Baltica, the European-standard-gauge railway project for the Baltic States, which also has important security implications (see EDM, October 19, 2016), is becoming a more important component of the future regional economy and security architecture. And now, Ukraine has expressed interest in joining this project... MORE
European Response to Russia’s Disinformation and Cyber Aggression: Reaction or Strategy?
On June 14, during the first international Global Cybersecurity Summit, in Kyiv, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, stated that “Ukraine has become a playground for the testing of the most up-to-date cyber techniques” by the Russian Federation (Ukrinform.ru,... MORE
Words Matter: Belarus and Its Western Neighbors
“Not merely tanks and weapons can kill, words can too,” wrote archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the leader of Belarusian Catholics, in his resentful letter to Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Prize laureate in literature. “The war that Russia started in Donbas is on Russia’s conscience,” Alexievich... MORE
Baltic Region Holds Multiple NATO Exercises in Anticipation of Russia’s Massive Zapad 2017 Drills
Twice in the past several weeks, Russian intrusions put the Baltics on high alert. On June 1, several Russian soldiers, traveling from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad without transit permits, were stopped in Lithuania (Apollo.lv, June 2). A week later, two Goryn-class tugboats—the MB-119 and... MORE
Poland Seeks Next-Generation Main Battle Tank to Replace Its Aging Soviet-Era T-72s
The Polish Ministry of National Defense (MoND) has expressed interest in acquiring next-generation main battle tanks (MBT) for the country’s ground forces. On May 30, the MoND’s Armament Inspectorate issued a call to domestic and international arms manufacturers to submit offers for consideration. The document... MORE
Russian Agitprop Pervades Central and Eastern Europe
The outbreak of the mass EuroMaidan street protests in Kyiv (2013) and Russia’s subsequent aggression against Ukraine convinced the Kremlin of the need to project Russian “soft power” to blunt any response from Europe. However, Western countries ostracized Russia particularly after it illegally and forcibly... MORE
NATO Consolidating ‘Collective Defense’ in Europe’s East
Since the beginning of February 2017, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has begun to implement the decision taken at the Alliance’s summit in Warsaw last July to deploy a rotational battalion-sized combat unit to each of the Baltic States and Poland. The bolstering of... MORE