Europe’s active response to the millions of Ukrainian refugees who fled Russia’s invasion has often been viewed as a positive approach to migration policy. Despite this, the future remains uncertain for these new residents. Government decisions across the continent will now play a role in deciding not just the economic future of the EU but Ukraine itself.

Russia’s decision to launch a full-scale war in Ukraine has resulted in millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country via its western border. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as of April 2023, 8,174,189 people have been recorded as refugees from Ukraine across Europe. Exactly 5,044,039 of them registered for temporary protection schemes in Europe.

Five years ago, North Macedonia and Greece signed the ground-breaking Prespa Agreement, paving the way for North Macedonia's accession to NATO and the European Union. However, the provisions of the agreement proved to be difficult for the Macedonians to accept. Now, Bulgaria has erected new barriers by vetoing North Macedonia's progress towards EU membership unless it agrees to Bulgaria's equally challenging prerequisites, further adding to the Macedonians’ hardships.

Five years have passed since the signing of the Prespa Agreement between North Macedonia and Greece. It was, and still is an agreement that left no one indifferent, Macedonian or Greek alike, and the consequences, both positive and negative, are felt to this day. The agreement was praised throughout the world as a visionary, modern and progressive way to solve the name issue, which plagued bilateral relations between the two countries for almost three decades.

Recent cyber-attacks against institutions throughout the Western Balkans have demonstrated a serious vulnerability that exists throughout the region. As a result, it has become clear that these countries now face a critical choice – either prioritise investments in the development and enhancement of cyber capacities or face much harsher consequences.

On a seemingly ordinary February day, the tranquillity of North Macedonia and its citizens was shattered, as the country fell victim to a harrowing cyber-attack which struck at the heart of its state-run Health Insurance Fund. The attack, for which authorities have yet to name a culprit, rippled through the healthcare system, plunging insured individuals into a state of vulnerability, devoid of vital medicine, while also leaving health workers without their hard-earned salaries.

For years, Hungary’s Fidesz government under Viktor Orbán has employed historical revisionism and irredentist symbols in domestic politics. The notion of “Greater Hungary” and grievances over the loss of territories due to the Treaty of Trianon, as well as referring to it as a national trauma, are central to this. While the strategy may help Orbán domestically, it negatively affects Hungary’s relationships with some neighbours.

“Greater Hungary”, also known as “Historic Hungary”, refers to the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the First World War. Today, the notion of Greater Hungary involves an irredentist political idea and refers to territories Hungary lost through the Paris Peace Treaty, in Hungary more commonly known as the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which ended the First World War between the Allies and Hungary.

As one of the only democracies in Central Asia, Mongolia remains a relatively small country surrounded by two geopolitical behemoths. Yet, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown Mongolia that nothing can be predicted and that it must be ready to face any situation. The support it provides to Buryats and others fleeing Russia indicates that it does not see eye-to-eye with Moscow’s aggression.

Former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj spoke out on September 23rd 2022 about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, calling on Vladimir Putin to end the war. Elbegdorj condemned the “killings” and “senseless destruction” caused by the conflict. His statement does not represent the official position of the Mongolian government, which is more restrained in its condemnation of Russia. However, the comments highlight the complexity of Mongolian-Russian relations and the conflicting voices within the country.

Ukrainian refugees who arrive to France face the daunting task of not only coming to a new country where they do not speak the language but also of trying to understand the complicated bureaucracy. In many cases, additional help from volunteers and online community groups is the only way to fully navigate the process.

When Olena Kondratova arrived in Paris in August 2022 after having fled the Russian invasion, she found shelter in temporary accommodation provided by French social services. The small apartment, where she lived with two other Ukrainian women, was two hours away from her new university, but it meant safety from the bombs raining down on her native city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

The civic campaign “BY_Help” started as an online initiative to help repressed Belarusians back in 2017. Little did the founder expect that both the success and need for the programme would only grow in the coming years. Despite all the challenges, BY_Help is still working, providing the much needed aid that so many Belarusians require in the face of extreme repressions.

The story of an initiative that has raised over five million US dollars to help victims of repression in Belarus began in a British pub in 2017. At the time, after a comparatively long break in cracking down on dissent, the hard-line authorities had started rounding up people to head off possible protests on Freedom Day, an unofficial holiday in Belarus celebrated on March 25th to commemorate the declaration of independence by the Belarusian Democratic Republic in 1918.

While Russia’s war in Ukraine has become a regular story in European and world media, its physical connections with the wider world have become severely restricted. Now reliant on railways and roads to transport both people and goods, the war-torn nation now dreams of a future in which airplanes will no longer bring destruction and death.

My last visit to Kyiv was on February 16th, 2022. It was the day that American intelligence determined to be the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities an initiative called “Reconciliation” was held on that day as well. It was meant to “strengthen the consolidation of the Ukrainian society, increase its resilience when faced with growing hybrid and propaganda threats as well as the psychological pressure that was being put on the Ukrainian society”, as stated by the president’s decree “On urgent means to consolidate the Ukrainian society”’ issued two days prior.

Ukraine’s military has set up special medical stabilisation points (stabs, for short) near the front lines to provide immediate treatment for wounded soldiers. These points, which are just a few kilometres from the front, are manned by dedicated medical staff and volunteers who work to save wounded soldiers coming out of Bakhmut. A recent visit to one of these points tells the story of these harrowing moments of sacrifice and hope amidst the chaos of war.

At the time of writing, the Battle of Bakhmut, reportedly the deadliest so far since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, is far from over. Even though there have been reports about Ukrainian forces pulling out from Bakhmut, the city continues to be the centre of military activity. Ukrainian forces still held some segments of the city for at least several days after the international media announced the Russian takeover in late May 2023.

Most Ukrainians today learn about Lina Kostenko during their Ukrainian literature classes at school. Her deep philosophical poetry is filled with love for her country, its people and humanity in general. As a result, it rarely leaves the reader indifferent. Kostenko belongs to the era of the “sixtiers”, a young rebellious generation that shook the world with its protests.

The generation of the 1960s has for a long time been and still is a great topic of debate for researchers. And there is nothing surprising here, as this was the generation born after the Second World War. They did not know all its horrors but they heard about them from those who survived the war. This was the period when the “hippie” movement was born in the United States. They were pacifists, loved rock and roll, took soft drugs and promoted the idea of free love.

Albania’s relationship with its communist past remains a difficult subject today. Often forgotten in the transition to democracy, these decades are remembered in different ways in the country’s museums. This article looks at how three institutions engage with this past, reflecting on their effectiveness and how they may ultimately preserve this historical memory for the future.

Historical narratives often treat a place as a witness to traumatic events. Three Tirana-based museums recounting difficult periods under Albania’s communist regime vividly illustrate this process. These include the National Historical Museum (1981), located in a building designed and designated as a cultural institution, Bunk'Art 1 and 2 (2014), located in authentic bomb shelters built as part of the “bunkerisation” of the 1970s, and the House of Leaves (2017), housed in a building that served as the headquarters of the Sigurimi state security service. Although they all depict the same story, each does so in a different way. The narrative is determined not only by the time the exhibit opened, but also by where it is displayed.

Soon after the news of the assassination plot against Archduke Franz Ferdinand reached Vienna, shock gave way to reflection. The would-be-king and next emperor was now dead, a gruesome fact that created a political vacuum and opened the gates for new opportunities.

The murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not a person without flaws. His social talents were less than average, and he could not compare himself with an actual emperor like Franz Joseph I. The ruling monarch had come to power amidst the stormy circumstances of a people’s revolution and the previous Ferdinand’s forced abdication.