With its unique political model, Kyrgyzstan, in a region full of autocratic regimes, is sometimes called an “island of democracy”. This reference, however, does not imply full ascension of democracy.

Kyrgyzstan is often understood to be the only democracy in Central Asia. A transfer of power has happened here more often than its neighbours. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have witnessed replacement at the top following the death of their respective rulers; in Kazakhstan, the presidential change happened this year with the approval of its long-serving president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who, as an aksakal , still retains significant political power; Emomali Rakhmon has been ruling Tajikistan, unchallenged, since the mid-1990s, when he rose to power after political turbulences and a bitter civil war.

From the very beginning, the European Union’s Support Group for Ukraine has focused on governance issues, for which it has mobilised close to 300 million euros in support between 2015 and 2019. With this and the deployment of other resources, the EU is closely involved in the implementation of key reforms. A lot has been accomplished, but many challenges lie ahead.

Five years ago Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity signalled the beginning of an extraordinary period of change. This included the enormous reform programme initiated with the signature and implementation of the Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (AA/DCFTA) with the European Union. After decades of stalemate, this alignment to western and often specifically European standards, rules and structures was a particular challenge to Ukraine’s institutions, some of which had remained largely unchanged since the times of the Soviet Union.

It has been over five years since the conflict has broken out in Ukraine, which saw Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea as well as direct military support for separatism in Donbas. Yet little has been done to achieve justice for the civilian victims of these devastating events. Recent steps taken by the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court may indicate some slow progress ahead.

The inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recent parliamentary elections and the formation of a new government have brought the question of justice back to the forefront of Ukrainian politics. Until now, little has been achieved in terms of ending impunity for criminal acts and human rights abuses perpetrated during the 2013-14 EuroMaidan and events in Crimea and Donbas.

The US Ukraine scandal has been in the news 24/7 in the United States for over a month now. Consistent with the origin of the inquiry, the focus has been more on the United States than Ukraine. This article examines a recent development in Ukraine’s fight against corruption that got lost amidst the all other Ukraine-related news.

In sharp contrast to the world in which Józef Piłsudski originally proposed an Intermarium alliance, the political climate today is ripe for regional collaboration. Eastern European nations are now long established and, therefore, unlikely to express the reticence that 1920s Lithuania and Ukraine did in returning into union with Poland.

In interwar Europe, newly-independent nations in the east found themselves suspended between two competing threats: German expansionism to the west and Russian imperialism to the east. In an effort to combat these threats, Józef Piłsudski, chief of state and First Marshal of the Second Polish Republic, advocated for a federation of Eastern European nations, interconnected in terms of economics, defence and politics.

In Germany there is more than one narrative about its East German past. The official one, which can be seen in the Berlin-based GDR Museum, shows a rather murky picture of oppression in a totalitarian state. This story is complemented by an alternative narrative, which is created by the people who still hold positive memories of their country’s socialist past.

I start my journey with Berlin. With dozens of tourists I wait in line to the GDR Museum located on the banks of the Spree River. Opened to the public in 2006 it is one of the main attractions of Germany’s capital, advertised all over the city and, as expected, visited by thousands of people a year. They come from all over the world. The visitors, as I gather from the conversations I overhear while waiting in the line for a ticket, differ in age and knowledge of what they are about to see.

A conversation with Elena Fanailova, a Russian poet. Interviewer: Elżbieta Żak.

To ask whether Gabriele D’Annunzio was a fascist or not is to pose the wrong question. Much more important is to ask why he marched in 1919 under arms into a contested city, and why did he brazenly insist on the political and cultural superiority of only one of that city’s ethnic groups.

In the early morning of Thursday September 12th 2019 a group of young Italian men in black t-shirts unfurled a large Italian flag in front of the former Governor’s Palace in the Croatian port city of Rijeka. They took a few group selfies and then quietly disappeared, their photos appearing on news sites throughout Italy and Croatia a few hours later.

The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 allowed new memorial works to begin for both Polish and German population groups in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in Poland. Today, German heritage is present again, and perceived positively throughout.

My grandmother Cilly never spoke badly about Poland and the Poles. When she spoke about her home in former East Prussia she never specifically mentioned the nationalities there, maybe because she came from a family with a dual identity where both Polish and German languages were spoken. Or maybe it was because nationalities never really played a role in everyday life in the region of Warmia before 1933.

How can we understand how Joseph Stalin, one of history’s most notorious dictators, is not only tolerated, but oftentimes defended in present-day Russia? Is this a failure of history? Who or what is fanning the flames of this modern Stalin-cult?

Recent months have witnessed some important anniversaries in the history of the Second World War. On January 27th 2018, the city of St Petersburg, formerly Leningrad, celebrated the 75th anniversary of the end of the Siege of Leningrad. The Nazi siege of the city, which lasted some 900 days, intended to starve the city out of existence. Though ultimately unsuccessful, over one million of the city’s residents died as a result, whilst many more experienced over two years of pain and suffering.

A review of The Intermarium as the Polish–Ukrainian Linchpin in Baltic–Black Sea Cooperation. Edited by: Ostap Kushnir. Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2019.

A review of Russia, The Former Soviet Republics, and Europe Since 1989: Transformation and Tragedy. By: Katherine Graney. Publisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom, 2019.