The last two centuries have seen Russia controlling over 80% of Ukrainian territory. Despite a brief period of independence proclaimed in 1918, it was only in 1991 that Ukrainians could truly establish an independent state. Today, the...
International polling, such as Pew’s 2018 research, has been proving the failure of Russian “soft power” since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. According to Pew, just 34% and 26% of the global public (covering 25 countries) expressed a...
Some anniversaries are marked because they are so important historically that one cannot understand the present without returning to them. Others are commemorated because they contain lessons that remain important for today. Marking the...
More than two weeks ago, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and I visited the capital cities of two neighboring states – Vilnius and Warsaw – for meetings with Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis of Lithuania and the head of the Polish...
The Izborsky Club, a group of Russian nationalist intellectuals that has often been extremely influential in the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin, is now calling for an updated version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, an accord that like the 1939...
In what many are calling “the Putin effect,” countries across Eastern Europe, including even Belarus, nominally Russia’s closest ally, are now arming themselves even when they have to cut social welfare spending because, in the words...
Thirty years ago the political landscape on the European continent seemed stable and fixated for decades to come. The continent was divided between the free West and the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the totalitarian Soviet imperium. A new...
Vladimir Putin’ decision to withdraw troops from Syria took many by surprise. However, at the end of November 2015, Arseniy Sivitskiy, Director of the Minsk Centre for Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies informed us about such a...
The announcement three weeks ago that Prague is prepared to transfer 360 hectares of territory to Poland in the Těšín Silesia area is the latest indication that the border changes in the former Soviet and Yugoslav spaces are sparking...
Obviously, the notes below are purely subjective. But I feel like we can outline certain tendencies. Ukraine in European media and European minds The Ukrainian issue is currently secondary in the newspapers a European citizen may take...
But, did you know that for the first and last time, Ukraine celebrated Independence Day on July 16, 1991? The chosen date was based on the first anniversary of the 1990 Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, which enshrined political...
