Analysis

Throughout the last 500 years, Russia has looked for different concepts with which it can strengthen its greatness and image of prestige. The ideology of Eurasianism is a relatively modern example of just one of these inspiring concepts, with the belief directly influenced by various intellectual and political legacies throughout the country’s history.

The history of Russia, apart from being the story of a nation, is by no means simply a tale of intriguing people desperately seeking greatness above all. However, striving for exceptionality remains a key feature of many national outlooks. As a Pole, I am at least partially aware of how often my fellow countrymen praise Polish history and its significance, exaggerating our achievements and showing off before the rest of the world. I believe such grand rhetoric is at least partly based on a nation’s genuine struggle for its place and identity.

After a year of waiting for Belarus’s constitutional reform amendments, the authorities have unveiled a draft document. For those still with some hope for political transformation, the proposed changes suggest that there will not be any real transition of power.

The first mention of new constitutional reform occurred during Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s address to the Belarusian people a few days before the 2020 elections. The Belarusian president declared then that “All reforms must start with the constitution. Not from street unrest, but from the basic law.” During Lukashenka’s visit to a factory amid the August 2020 protests, he offered to amend the constitution and reduce his presidential powers. This took place while he was being heckled by the factory’s workers. Amidst this turmoil, the Belarusian authorities began putting together new amendments to the constitution. These were recently published by the state-run news agency BelTA.

The Crimea Platform launched by Kyiv last year attracted great media attention across the globe. Despite this, practical steps must be taken to keep the issue of Crimea’s sovereignty on the international agenda.

Launched last August, Ukraine’s Crimea Platform has become a new international format aimed at countering Russia’s attempt to illegally annex Crimea. This move called into question the basic tenets of the international legal order established following the end of the Cold War. As a result, the issue of restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea is not only of interest to Ukrainian policy, but is also an important task for those countries that wish to re-establish the “strength of law” rather than the “law of strength”.

While China struggles to consolidate its economic position in the South Caucasus, Pakistan has cemented its strategic alliance with Azerbaijan. Simultaneously, India has entered a new phase of relations with Armenia. Even though the presence of Asian powers in the region represents an opportunity for economic development, it may also entail some risks.

Asian powers have recently shown increasing interest in the South Caucasus. In particular, Pakistan and India have stepped into the region, joining and partially balancing China's strong presence. Several factors have contributed to the entrance of these new Asian players and this is particularly true regarding the new balance of power established by the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. At the same time, the European Union and United States’ lack of engagement with the region has left more room for action by other external powers.

There are some problems in politics that simply do not have good solutions. Relations between Armenia and Turkey are certainly one of these issues. Yet, for the first time since 2009, a move towards the normalisation of political relations now seems to be within reach.

Following over a decade of diplomatic silence on the matter, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan recently broached the issue of normalising relations with Armenia in August last year. The president stated that he would be ready to take all the necessary steps to resume relations with Ankara’s neighbour. This proposition from the Turkish side was echoed a few days later by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The individual Russian citizen possesses an identity formed by their history, values and national identity. The domestic relationship between the country’s people and government rests upon the pillars of economic and national security, which naturally form an integral part of the country’s international goals. These two points have encouraged Russia to pursue competition with the West.

The Caucasus region is a wealthy area in terms of its geopolitical position, strategic importance and history. Certainly, the geoeconomic relevance of the region has once again become clear following the end of the latest fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Caucasus is the name of a mountain range and geographical region that includes the southwest of European Russia, as well as the territories of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. This region encompasses a 440,000 square kilometre space between the Black and Caspian Seas and has a population of approximately 30.6 million people. As a result, the Caucasus faces its own distinct geopolitical realities that could become even more important given talks of a new Cold War.

Over the last decade, the natural gas market in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has changed dramatically. Today, we are seeing more cross-border pipeline routes that are bi-directional and the possibility of greater liquified natural gas (LNG) imports. These changes will bring increased economic opportunities for the full market chain under EU rules. Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine are emerging as key players in these developments.

Not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, western policymakers began to think about how to reduce European reliance on Russian hydrocarbon resources by expanding Europe’s alternative sources. Much of the energy diplomacy undertaken since then has focused on building pipeline infrastructure designed to bring new sources of oil and gas to Europe that bypass Russia. Of course, this strategy has seen many large successes, with the development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) perhaps the most notable examples.

This year saw the launch of the “Associated Trio” by Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Eager to pursue further European integration, the three states have prioritised public diplomacy as one of the key parts of these efforts. Yet, recent developments suggest much work is still to be done if the new group hopes to work together effectively.

Various hybrid challenges, as well as the foreign policy realities of the regions of Central and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, have led Ukraine to increasingly promote itself as an independent and active actor in the international arena. The country’s new projects, such as the large-scale Crimean Platform and a number of regional alliances, including the Ukrainian-Turkish “Quadriga” and the Ukrainian-Polish-Lithuanian Lublin Triangle, serve as evidence of this new assertiveness.

The 2021 Estonian local elections will be unprecedentedly fractured and may portend major changes to the small northern European nation’s electorate. Despite the rhetoric, most campaigns seek to address everyday concerns.

Azerbaijan’s decade-long balanced foreign policy between Russia and the West took a decisive turn after last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh, highlighted by a greater emphasis on military alignment with an increasingly assertive Turkey. Ankara and Baku also came together to shape a nucleus for tripartite configurations with countries in different parts of the globe – Pakistan being an essential one to build a solid international base for supporting Azerbaijan’s cause on the Karabakh issue.