Interview with Roman Shutov, programme director with Detektor Media in Kyiv. Interviewer: Adam Reichardt.

Interview with Anders Åslund, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Interviewer Adam Reichardt.

A Review of Putin’s Propaganda Machine. Soft power and Russian foreign policy. By: Marcel Van Herpen. Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, USA, 2016. 

In July 2009, a few months after the inauguration of US President Barack Obama, a letter was published to the new American president in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza. Signed by current and former heads of states and leading intellectuals from Central and Eastern Europe, the letter was meant to be a warning to the new American administration. Despite the success of the region’s rapprochement with the West, the authors felt there was still much work to be done. “20 years after the end of the Cold War,” the authors wrote, “we see that Central and Eastern Europe … is a part of the world that Americans have largely stopped worrying about.” They cautioned it was too premature to “assume that the region's transatlantic orientation, as well as its stability and prosperity, would last forever.”

The fates of Europe and Ukraine converge on May 25th, as both societies go to the polls.

On May 25^th 2014, Europeans go to the polls in one of the most significant elections in the continent’s history. Of course, I am not only referring to the European Parliamentary elections, but also the presidential elections that are taking place in Ukraine – a country whose people have decided on a European path.

Interview with Andrew Wilson, University College London. Interviewer: Adam Reichardt

ADAM REICHARDT: The Russian aggression in Crimea has been strongly condemned in the West with the United States, United Kingdom, France and others suggesting even a boycott of the G8 summit in Sochi. Do you feel that the Western response so far has been adequate?

ANDREW WILSON: So far, indeed yes. Some would say that Russia should be kicked out of the G8 altogether. For those who want the lines of communication open, perhaps that’s too strong a measure, but the G7 can meet on its own without Russia.

 Photo by Wojciech Koźmic

This past week was a turning point in Ukraine’s months-long protests dubbed the “EuroMaidan”. The developments, however, have taken a turn for the worse. As the protests began losing steam and the endurance of the protesters waned, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s Parliament, took some draconian legislative actions aimed at deterring the protests and criminalising their activities. After the Verkhovna Rada passed this year’s state budget without any debate, it proceeded to adopt new provisions to Ukraine’s criminal code that severely limit public assembly and opposition. Many have criticised these laws as being anti-democratic and in violation of Ukraine’s Constitution. The Parliament contends that these measures are necessary to ensure public safety.