The geopolitical salience of the Russia–Ukraine War and the remoteness of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union or NATO call for intensification and modification of, and innovation in, current western approaches.

Many Western European public debates about help for Ukraine juxtapose feelings of solidarity for Ukrainians with concerns about the security of the West. This dualism ignores the core national interests of EU and NATO member countries regarding a Russian defeat and the development of a safe, stable and resilient Ukraine.

A central element of Moscow’s justification for its “special military operation” is its desire to “demilitarise” Ukraine. Whilst this appears to be one of the Kremlin’s relatively less elusive goals, it is just as unattainable as the other aims.

The strange tragedy of Angela Merkel's Ostpolitik in 2005-2021 was that the highly intelligent and committed chancellor showed herself incapable of departing from the wrong track in Germany’s Russia policy that Berlin had already taken before she took office. It is symptomatic that none of the early German mistakes vis-à-vis Moscow was directly related to Ukraine, yet the conflict surrounding Ukraine since 2014 has been marking the fiasco of Germany's Ostpolitik in the new century.

Berlin made a momentous blunder long before Angela Merkel came to power and early in the succession of Vladimir Putin's reigns of, so far, two premierships and four presidencies. In September 2001, the Federal Republic’s government invited Russia's newly minted second president, Vladimir Putin, to address the assembled Bundestag. No other Russian head of government or state has ever received such an honour.

While Navalny is for many Europeans not an ideal alternative to Putin, he has become a significant figure with regards to Europe’s political future. Navalny’s rise over the last few months has severely disrupted Putin’s system of rule. This suggests that the re-emergence of genuine political pluralism in Russia may now be possible.

The Russian-controlled east Ukrainian separatists have been operating a small concentration camp in the city of Donetsk, Ukraine for more than six years now. Outside any regular jurisdiction, men and women are being physically and psychologically tormented on a daily basis, in ways reminiscent of Europe’s darkest times.

The current Belarusian transformation looks as if it could be having results similar to those of the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia rather than of the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Yet, the pathological relationship of Moscow’s imperialism towards Russia’s Eastern Slavic “brotherly nations” can mean that Belarus’s future may, in the end, become more similar to Ukraine’s rather than Armenia’s present.

Ukraine and Belarus are two of the culturally and geographically closest nations of Europe. Their Eastern Slavic languages, major Christian-Orthodox churches and peculiar locations between Russia, on the one side, and the European Union (as well as NATO), on the other, are comparable and intertwined. Both are, on one level, very close to the also largely Orthodox and Eastern Slavic Russians.

Current military-civil administration in eastern Ukrainian frontline districts need to be kept in place and partially reformed. Should the Donets Basin return to Ukrainian control, they could provide institutional templates for a temporary special regime within the currently occupied territories.

Deliberations on the political repercussions of the ongoing pandemic for international relations and Ukrainian foreign affairs.

How Russia’s religious hierarchs reject the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Counterintuitive deliberations on a possible future partnership between Ukraine and Germany.

Ukraine’s elections have now delivered a result where all executive and most legislative power rests in the hands of only one party.