Although the word ‘electricity’ is currently associated primarily with concerns about high prices, the fact that a stable and secure electric power supply is a national security issue essential for the functioning of the whole economy and society must not be overlooked. This is especially true for the Baltic states which continue to be connected to the Russia-managed synchronous electricity system.
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Since the end of President Vladimir Putin’s second term (2004–2008), Moscow has increasingly been looking north. In the West, this has fuelled an alarmist discourse about a ‘race for the Arctic’, but the renewed focus on the Arctic is just as much about domestic development: transforming Moscow’s frozen backyard into a ‘strategic resource base for the 21st century’.
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As part of energy security studies, the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) launched a new project to explore how development of nuclear energy in Estonia may impact its foreign and security policy interests and relations with strategic partners such as the US. The study will be conducted in cooperation with Fermi Energia.
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Vladimir Putin has been declared a world pariah. This pariah aims to “conquer Europe”, primarily by financial and economic means. But European leaders remain vague in their statements and actions against the Kremlin, while Europe’s businessmen continue to buy Russian raw materials and thereby finance anti-European propaganda. This vicious circle needs to end.
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In late 2020, Belarus inaugurated the Astravyets Nuclear Power Plant (Astravyets NPP). This facility – funded by the Russian government and built by the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom – is one that Lithuania considers a threat to its national security. The project has already been causing frictions in the Baltic region that are yet to be resolved; the situation is emblematic of why and how Moscow is advancing its interests by exploiting the nuclear energy aspirations of various countries in Europe.
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Kremlin expected several serious foreign policy disappointments in the Balkan countries at the end of 2020. Russia’s monopoly on the gas market in the Balkans has been shaken, and Belgrade and Pristina move towards normalisation of economic relations.
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It is now extremely unlikely that Gazprom owned Nord Stream 2 will ever be operational in the way Moscow envisaged. US sanctions have stopped pipeline construction in its tracks. More US sanctions will be adopted before the end of the year creating further problems for the pipeline.
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The dispute between Greece and Turkey over maritime territories goes back generations and remains unresolved. As competition over natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean intensifies, the situation has become dangerously militarised. With the help of Dimitrios Triantaphyllou, professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, we assess what is different about the same old debate this time and why it has become heated now, and we look at the fallout between the two NATO allies, reactions within the EU, the grievances of both countries and the wider international setting that contributes to the tensions.
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On 7 September, German doctors treating Alexei Navalny in the Charité hospital in Berlin announced that he had been brought out of an induced coma and taken off mechanical ventilation, emergency treatments he had received in response to his poisoning. Navalny’s condition has improved. He responds to verbal stimuli, but it is too early to assess whether there will be any long-term effects on his health.
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Introduction On 11 December 2019, the European Commission adopted the European Green Deal1 with the objective to achieve climate neutrality
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