Since the spurious presidential elections of 2020 and subsequent protests, as well as the repressions that have been taking place, we know that Alyaksandr Lukashenka does not represent Belarus. Even more importantly, regardless of the scale of repressions, the Belarusian nation is not the dictator’s property. It continues to fight for its freedom and independence and could be a vital force in ending Russian imperialism once and for all.

The anti-Putin coalition is divided on the question of what tactics should be used against Russia at the time of its war against Ukraine. The main problem in this dispute involves two key conflicting ideas. The first believes that we should take advantage of Putin’s huge mistake of starting a war in Ukraine and now must do everything possible to get rid of Russian imperialism in Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2008, NATO did not grant Ukraine and Georgia a Membership Action Plan. It was mainly the result of Vladimir Putin’s personal persuasion at the NATO Summit in Bucharest which took place that year. The Kremlin considered it as a weakness of the West and attacked Georgia the same year. Is the European Union now capable of taking a bolder decision with regards to countries aspiring to join its structures?

The sanctions temporarily introduced against Russia as a result of its brutal invasion of Ukraine are not a tool of strategic change for Putin’s actions. The key to success will lie in a complex process of holding those responsible for the war and its consequences accountable and eliminating all of influences that the Putin system has in Europe. Just like there was a denazification of Germany after the Second World War, today we will need to de-Putinise Russia and eliminate his influence abroad. Such a plan should include both legal and international activities as well as political actions to condemn Putin’s wrongdoing.

Growing Sino-American rivalry has directly influenced Vladimir Putin’s plans to restore Russia’s sphere of influence in our part of Europe. In order to create the country’s third empire, Putin needs to concentrate on three states: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Of the three of these countries, the most important is Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden has continued to pursue a China-focused foreign policy ever since his election victory in 2020. This pivot to Asia is clearly not the only legacy from the previous Donald Trump administration. During the first decades of the 21st century, America’s increasing focus on China and the challenge of a potential war in South-East Asia influenced US foreign policy in other regions of the world, including Central Asia and Central and Eastern Europe.

It seems that the latest belle époque in western history is nearing its end, which could mean the end of the West as we know it. A miracle can happen, of course, as history is full of unexpected turns and changes, but if the current trends continue we can only await the melancholy of the fin de siècle before another massive change.

The first belle époque preceded the First World War. It took place when, after the end of the French-Prussian war in 1871, European states experienced an extraordinary economic and cultural boom. The telephone, the automobile, as well as the aeroplane were the great inventions of the belle époque which defined our understanding of the comfort and progress of the 20th century. Thanks to these three inventions, as well as peace and prosperity, the Third French Republic and Imperial Germany were able to increase their might and thus rapidly developed.

The collapse of the international order we are now witnessing is also seen in the failure of Pax Americana in the post-Soviet space. Since the end of the Cold War, the West has targeted this region with hyper-fast change and the peaceful transition from totalitarianism to democracy. Today, we know that it has had a limited impact.

In 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, the world was faced with a colossal challenge. It was clear that the obsolete Soviet system had to be replaced with a new model, preferably one that based on the free market and liberal democracy. The transition started in Central Europe in 1989 but did not spread to the whole post-Soviet space. On the ruins of the former Soviet empire, many states did not succumb to the democratisation processes which, in time, created an opportunity for the ancient empires (Russia, China and Turkey) to develop an alternative plan and fill the void that was caused by the limited effectiveness of the West’s engagement. For the leaders of these powers (Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in particular) the post-Soviet states offered new lucrative opportunities.

Interview with Paweł Kowal, a post-doctoral fellow at the College of Europe in Natolin and former Member of the European Parliament. Interviewer: Iwona Reichardt

In the current issue of New Eastern Europe we published an essay titled “The five rings of the empire” by Paweł Kowal.

After publishing the piece online, we received a few reader questions about the author’s decision to include the Scottish National Party in his analysis such as the one below.

This piece originally appeared in Issue 2/2017 of New Eastern Europe. Subscribe now.

Edward Lucas of the Economist is right. When it comes to Ukraine, both the United States and the European Union acted too late.