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Dirk Mattheisen is a writer and blogger on political economy with a focus on European affairs. He is also an independent consultant on institutional governance of international economic and financial institutions. Dirk Mattheisen is a former Assistant Corporate Secretary of The World Bank Group.
As Ukraine strives to emerge as a strong and independent nation, Russian disinformation works to undermine its legitimacy. Disinformation has a powerful influence on Western public and policy makers’ understanding of the issues affecting...
Buffeted by rapacious oligarchs and invasion by Russia, Ukraine seems an unlikely success story. However, renewed economic growth is fueling a growing sense of optimism and of opportunity. There are a few things getting in the way. But...
In response to a recent article on prospects for the Russian economy (Russia: All Scenarios Are Bad in Interiabiznes, a Polish news service), a commenter who can be inferred to be a young Russian professional inveighed against the argument...
In a recent article, “Russia Increasingly Treats Georgia As Its Prospective Satellite,” Vasili Rukhadze, political analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, writes that Georgia has recently experienced a “heightened level of Russian...
As Russia approaches its 2018 presidential election, dissent in Russia has taken an ominous turn. A wide-spread truckers’ strike against road tolls pits the working class against the oligarchs. An unexpectedly large “youth protest”...
The photo above says it all. Soviet era façades. The blonde in an expensive ski jacket. The bloodied body on the sidewalk next to a luxury car. It’s the stuff of post-Soviet pulp novels. On Thursday, Denys Voronenkov, a Russian...
To hear Marine Le Pen talk, sanctions against Russia don’t work, and she stands a decent chance of being elected president of France. She has company here and there in odd places. The deputy speaker of the Serbian parliament, Gordana...
The nationalization on December 18 of Privatbank, Ukraine’s largest bank by assets, opens a new and promising chapter in the reform of Ukraine. Privatbank’s nationalization due to a slow boiling insolvency crisis that threatened to...
Almost unnoticed, economic growth in Ukraine has turned positive and the pace of growth has quickened. This is important not only for the material well-being of Ukrainians but because more than anything else economic growth promises a...
At mid-year the Russian economy may be going up—or down. In what amounts to an ongoing ritual, in a June 17 interview President Putin sounded positive about the direction of the Russian economy. He is quoted as saying, “we expected...
The fight for its creation was not easy. President Petro Poroshenko, the author of Ukraine’s judicial reform, resisted the idea till the very last moment. The pressure of society and Ukraine’s western partners made him change his mind....
