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Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression continues to make headlines around the world. However, what has not been discussed to any great extent is the fight against disinformation and collaborators on the home front. With no end in sight to the fighting, it is clear that such espionage could prove pivotal to the war’s outcome.

More than a year into Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine, the fight with Moscow’s propaganda is entering another important stage. Despite all the efforts of Ukraine’s special and secret services, there are still some pro-Russian Ukrainians or Russian citizens themselves who are spies, trying to provide essential information to the Russian Federal Security Service.

While in the region Czechia can be considered a positive case in resisting authoritarian influence, it has been far from perfect, especially when considering its recent turbulence. Nevertheless, there are now a lot of practices countering malign influence – including that of China – in Czechia that could serve as examples for both the region and the wider EU.

Since February 24th 2022, the whole of Europe and the world have been witnessing a new phase in the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has reshaped the European – and to a large extent also the global – security order. Issues such as the shelling of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, often described as “nuclear blackmail”, frightened the global community into fearing a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in the Soviet Union.

De facto pro-Russian communities are clearly consolidating in the context of the upcoming Polish parliamentary elections. The groups in question are made up of people who have contacts with entities linked to the Russian state. We can assume that the Russian Federation not only supports such groups through the Polish-language sources it runs, but also has influence on the activity of some of the people operating within these communities.

By mid-2022, the first activities of those promoting pro-Russian statements in the Polish information sphere were clearly perceptible, indicating the growing consolidation of a broad pro-Russian community with political ambitions. The start of 2023, especially the first weeks of the year, only further showed this to be the trend.

An interview with Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. Interviewers: Adam Reichardt and Agnieszka Widłaszewska

The crucial factor in Russia’s war against Ukraine is how to help Kyiv defend itself and win? There should be a straightforward answer: as Europeans, we should do everything in our power to assist the Ukrainians in stopping the Russian war of conquest and that Ukraine should decide the conditions of victory and the subsequent peace. Yet, unfortunately, there still is no consensus among the western partners of Ukraine on the war’s endgame.

It has been more than one year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion and over nine years since Moscow started its war in Ukraine. After the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, the Euro-Atlantic community made several attempts to recalibrate its security and defence policies. However, it was only after the shock of February 24th 2022 and its aftermath that most western states and societies experienced a rude awakening.

With the full-scale invasion still underway and the number of defenders on the battlefields growing, the need for a revised comprehensive state policy on veteran reintegration is imminent. A holistic, coordinated and human-centred approach recognising the relevant combat-related experiences of this sizable population group will be the essence of any post-war recovery.

Recently, Russia’s full-scale invasion marked its one-year anniversary. While the end of the ongoing armed conflict is currently unclear, many international partners have already initiated discussions about post-war reconstruction. While the frontlines may still be shifting and the length of the war may be determined by western-supplied arms and the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, there are some principles of social cohesion that tend to be slightly overlooked in narratives concerning Ukraine’s recovery.

In a crisis situation nothing is certain. We all share the unpleasant feeling that we are slowly losing the firm ground beneath our feet. And this crisis mood colours also our view of the future. Yet, there are actors who consciously and willingly cause crisis situations with the intention to profit from the ensuing chaos.

Today the word “crisis” is on everyone’s lips. And this is not without reason. In the last few years we have been confronted with an accumulation of crisis situations. It started with the Donald Trump presidency and continued with the COVID-19 pandemic, which not only caused a huge death toll, but also destabilised the world economy. The crisis further deepened with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, undermining the international rules-based order that was built after the Second World War. The war led not only to bloodshed and hardship, but also further deterioration in an already dire economic situation, boosting inflation. So, here we are today!

The war in Ukraine reminds us that the peaceful civic revolutions of 1989-91 have not yet been completed. Today Vladimir Putin is once again trying to stop Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity and reverse its dynamics. He is also the co-creator of a new nationalistic populism in Europe and the United States. The main goal of this movement is to destroy civic culture and solidarity among people.

When we ask Europeans what comes to their mind when they think of the word solidarity, we see that their answer today differs compared to what it was before February 24th 2022. Many will probably say that for them solidarity means support for the democratic Ukrainian society that is being attacked by Putinist Russia. Among the answers there might be justified opinions that the Russian political system has become fascist. The war in Ukraine is the next step in Russia’s authoritarian radicalisation, which translates into increased violence and aggression against its neighbours, but also against the Russian society. All dissent is brutally crushed there.

Like their predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s, today’s populists understand that by dividing society and delegitimising their adversaries, they can get away with blatant violations of the democratic rules. They aim to fuel discontent and toxic polarisation, which transform public debate into tribal wars.

In the mid-1970s three eminent political scientists – Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington, and Joji Watanuki – penned a famous report on the crisis of western democracy, which they described as declining and overloaded with societal demands. Paradoxically, their report coincided with the start of a democratisation wave that, in 15 years, swept away dictatorships across the globe, including those in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine has dramatically exacerbated Kyiv’s dependence on the West to keep the economy afloat. Ukraine’s finance ministry estimates that in 2022, 38.6 per cent of the country’s budget came from external donors in grants and credits while Ukraine’s GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund, contracted by a third.

As Russia continues to bomb Ukraine’s power grid and destroy its infrastructure, the country’s economic projections for 2023 are devoid of optimism. For the country to survive, it needs economic assistance from abroad – and this is where matters get complicated. While Brussels recently gave the green light to the long-awaited macro-aid package worth 18 billion euros, the latest economic forecasts also spell trouble for EU economies, with the eurozone’s GDP growth expected to slow to 0.3 per cent.

Poland responded generously to the mass inflow of refugees from Ukraine as Russia invaded in February last year. However, the need for help continues with every day of the war. While times are indeed hard for the country’s army of volunteers, they are determined to continue aiding people in their time of need.

Right before the end of 2022 the vice chairman of the Polish Development Fund, Bartosz Marczuk, published a tweet in which he presented the amount of money that Poland had spent on helping Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian aggression on February 24th. The data that he presented showed that altogether in 2022 it was between 35 and 40 billion Polish zlotys, which is between 7.5 and 8.5 billion euros. Out of it, ten billion zlotys were spent on weapons, six billion amounted to state support for Ukrainian refugees (including support for children), around ten billion was spent by local governments and non-governmental organisations, and another ten billion was made up of the private help of the Polish people.