Analysis

Facing the largest street protests in a decade, Russian authorities responded with an unprecedented wave of repression. The harsh crackdown seems to have had the desired effect: Navalny’s allies were forced to put their protests on hold.

Russian police detained Dmitry Gliuz, aged 30, on Sennaya Square, in the centre of St Petersburg, shortly after he came out from the metro. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong, just standing and looking at my phone, when suddenly policemen grabbed me and punched me in the stomach”. Gliuz was among the thousands of people detained on January 31st during the nationwide protests in support of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny.

The space for freedom is shrinking in Russia. Many see a repetition of 1937 – a period of the most severe Stalinist terror, when government agents, at any moment, could come to any house and throw you in jail. The reason does not matter and it can happen to anyone. Yet still, everyone continues to stand by and stay silent.

On January 17th this year, the return of Alexei Navalny to Russia was being watched by the entire politically-minded society, or at least a large part of it. People across the political spectrum were equally fixated. I know many leftists (or liberals) who were sincerely worried, and many rightists (or conservatives) who rubbed their hands maliciously. All were watching via the internet livestream or traditional media, and some with one eye closed. The arrest of Navalny at Sheremetyevo airport became the starting point not only for street protests and clashes, but for intra-family disputes.

On February 2nd Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a presidential decree sanctioning Lviv oligarch Taras Kozak’s companies which owns three pro-Russian television channels. Unofficially, these channels are controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine. The US election victory of Joe Biden has stiffened western and Ukrainian resolve to take on Russian President Vladimir Putin at a time when he is facing growing opposition at home.

The question of information warfare and disinformation have become hot topics since the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. Nevertheless, one should not assume that this threat was invented by Russian President Vladimir Putin as the Soviet Union had practised dezinformatsiya and mokryie dela (wet affairs – assassinations) for decades.

The European Union currently faces several domestic issues. It is still a union of member states, whose leaders have different approaches towards many challenges, and still has no common army or military strategy. That is why US engagement in the region is still necessary, just as it was in the 1990s after the fall of communism.

“America is back” – that is how Joe Biden began his speech regarding his foreign policy priorities. What does that mean for the world and Europe in particular? Since the Second World War, no US president has brought so much foreign policy expertise to the White House. Biden probably has the most significant international experience among current world leaders, and especially amongst American politicians.

Georgia’s household debt crisis existed long before COVID-19 hit, but it has been exacerbated by the current pandemic. To make matters worse, the credit environment is plagued with predatory conditions and a lack of regulation which has put many of Georgia’s most vulnerable citizens in a perpetual debt cycle.

Approximately 150 kilometres north of Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, and nestled into a valley below Mount Kazbek lies the town of Stepantsminda. Home to a population of fewer than 2,000 permanent residents, Stepantsminda has become a popular destination over the last decade and has economically benefited from Georgia’s growing tourism sector. Keti, a local woman from the Kazbegi region, joined the area’s emergent hospitality sector in 2015. She opened a hotel with the help of a loan from one of the country’s largest private banks, Bank of Georgia.

The announcement earlier this year of Bidzina Ivanishvili’s departure from the political arena came at a time of domestic political unrest, and has been questioned by many in Georgia. Ivanishvili had already resigned from political life in 2013. Yet, kept ruling from behind the scenes. Will this time be any different?

On January 11th this year, Bidzina Ivanishvili, founder and chairman of Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party and the country’s most influential politician announced his retirement from politics “as party chairman, as well as from the party itself”. The 65-year-old billionaire declared his mission was accomplished, having decided to return to his “private lifestyle” and to “completely withdraw from politics and let go of the reins of power”.

The symbols and language of the 2020 Belarus protests circumvented the terminological deadlock of Belarusian identity, which for years had been attempted to be explained by national templates. Unconventional actions by the public have revealed a hidden picture of the mentality in Belarus, which has become a huge step towards a post-national future.

The ongoing Belarusian protests in addition to its obvious political aims, also solves a much more important issue. The public is abandoning the national template of self-determination as a civil order. For Belarusians in 2020, so many things have changed. For the first time in more than a quarter century, the authorities in Minsk felt a real danger to their existence and lost control over public opinion.

Data on the attitudes of the population in Donbas to integration with the West or East, reveals a choice that is not viewed as mutually exclusive.

Ukraine is the eighth country in the world in terms of nuclear power plant capacity. The country is now in the process of repairing, modernising and finding new technologies to meet the electricity demand. However, a focus on management and transparency is still necessary in order to have a safe, effective and publically profitable nuclear power sector.

Nuclear energy began to develop actively and significantly in the second half of the 20th century. This boom was primarily due to the dynamism felt in all sectors of industry which was based on large numbers of labour and massive electricity demands. Yet, the beginning of the 21st century started to see a decline in this sector. Today competition in the energy sector contributes to the fact that energy markets are developing very rapidly and energy resources are becoming more affordable.

In these uneasy times of global uncertainty, Russia's European neighbourhood has become an arena for tense competition between the West and its adversary.

The EU's complicated decision-making system is still confusing for many citizens. How do Lithuanians view the work of the European Parliament?