As usual, Russia is trying to benefit from Georgia’s toxic political environment and capitalise on the divisions. It has doubled down on its pressure and blackmail to push the vulnerable country towards formally changing its pro-Western foreign policy course. By undermining its democratic credentials and Western integration, Georgia is naturally sliding towards Russia’s orbit.
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Despite the geographical distance between them, Estonia and Japan share many similar security challenges, such as potential destabilisation in cyberspace due to geopolitical tensions and conflicts, the vulnerability of national digital infrastructure, and the impact of cyber-attacks on trust in open, democratic societies. Tackling such challenges requires close international cooperation and the exchange of national best practices and experiences.
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The 6 January events in Washington DC provoked disbelief and horror across the Western world. But in authoritarian regimes, they were met with a large dose of cynicism and hypocrisy. Many countries continue to reject democracy, which they consider a danger to themselves and to everybody else.
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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 brief explores reasons why the concerns, grievances and perceptions of all vulnerable societal groups should receive adequate attention if further harm inflicted by fact-free and/or fact-twisting ‘alternative realities’ is to be averted.
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This report revisits the spring 2007 crisis in Estonia, centred on the World War II memorial known as the Bronze Soldier statue. The crisis is well-known both in Estonia and abroad. It was one of the first wake-up calls to the cooling of relations between Russia and the West. It also involved the first use of wide-ranging cyber-attacks against a state.
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In the course of 2018-20, development of Fifth Generation (5G) communication networks has been increasingly influenced by the considerations of national security and geopolitics.
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The protests in Khabarovsk, a city of 600,000 located seven time zones east of Moscow, drew up to 100,000 people on the latest in a series of marches against president Vladimir Putin on Saturday. Although city officials claimed that only a couple of thousand people were protesting, a quick look at photos of the streets will set the record straight.
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The aims of this report are to explain Ukraine’s consolidation, resilience and determination to make its own decisions despite great asymmetries of power and Russia’s exploitation of its vulnerabilities and divisions; to describe why President Volodymyr Zelensky represents an opportunity as well as a challenge to Russia; and to set out necessary and realistic goals for the West.
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For the Baltic states and Ukraine, national resilience, among other things, means rejecting (but not forgetting!) the Soviet heritage as utterly alien, retrograde and mind-intoxicating one.
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