The Sino-Russian relationship was, for many years, a subject that failed to excite. Very few experts committed time and effort to exploring its ups and downs. Those that did spent their time debating whether the relationship was really a marriage of true minds or a marriage of convenience.
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Heidi Maiberg’s discussion with Anton Shekhovtsov on (ultra-)nationalism in Ukraine and war’s influence on the European far-right milieu.
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Estonia’s north-eastern county of Ida-Virumaa is again at the centre of the national policy debate. The new coalition agreement between the ruling parties concluded in the spring of 2023 pays greater attention to the region and institutes a new position. In particular, a special representative for Ida-Virumaa will be in charge of finding progressive solutions to the county-specific problems.
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A turning point can come as early as these spring and summer months, says Dr Pavel Baev, professor at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo. Neither we nor Russians need the Pentagon leaks to see how seriously Ukraine has been preparing for a new offensive to liberate the occupied parts of the country. And it makes Russians nervous.
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There is no reason to assume that history in the 21st century will necessarily be less complicated or less bloody than it was in the 20th or 19th centuries. To cope with global competition, we have to strengthen a common front with the countries that share our worldview, both in fundamental issues but also in the coordination of everyday matters of practical politics, says Jonatan Vseviov, the secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia.
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For Russians and Europeans alike, the historic event of our time is the war on Ukrainian soil. Yet both Europeans and Americans see these developments through the eyes of Ukrainians. In Russia’s behaviour and of its army, they see multiple violations of legal and moral norms. Not many Russians dare to express solidarity with those views since in today’s Russia, to publicly express such opinions is to commit administrative or even criminal offenses.
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In 1944, the Soviet regime deported over 190,000 Crimean Tatars from their homes – an act of ethnic cleansing. Today, Kyiv calls Russia’s actions against Ukraine a genocide. What are the historical parallels?
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By the end of 2021, all leading independent NGOs and individual human rights activists had been completely suppressed, and all issues deemed inconvenient for the Kremlin had been removed from the agenda of those still operating. This report focuses on the state of Russian civil society at the outset of Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, as well as on how it was affected by the war and what are the prospects for its development in the future.
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Despite the mounting evidence of the most serious of human rights violations being conducted by Russian forces on Ukrainian soil, the EU has chosen not to use its new Magnitsky Act to blacklist the perpetrators and their commanders.
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Having been crumbling already for years, international arms control architecture is now in a perilous state. Existing arrangements have either been losing their effectiveness or outright failing due to Russia’s non-compliance, whilst Russia’s aggression against Ukraine might have delivered the final blow to this system.
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