#eastern Europe

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How to Make Eastern Europe’s Gray Zone less Gray?
March 14, 2019 11 min. read

The US’s Baltic and Adriatic Charters could become templates for embedding Ukraine and Georgia as well as, perhaps, Moldova and Azerbaijan into a provisional multilateral security structure.   By Iryna Vereshchuk and Andreas Umland It is remarkable how strongly some international organizations’ coverage of the East-Central European and South Caucasian post-Soviet space has come to […]

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Secondary literature list for my seminar “Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions” @UniJena, in April-June 2019 (books, journals, websites)
March 13, 2019 15 min. read

“Ukraine between the European and Eurasian Unions: Revolution, War, Reform” The seminar aims to introduce Master-students into one of Europe’s critical conflicts today, and to illustrate, using the example of Ukraine, inter-relation between Europeanization, post-Soviet transformation and security politics. We will touch upon general themes of European studies, like democracy promotion, neighborhood policies, transposition of […]

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Ukraine’s South as a New Geopolitical Flashpoint
March 7, 2019 6 min. read

  Four factors make further tensions between Russia and Ukraine along the shores of the Crimean peninsula and Azov Sea probable.   On 25 November 2018, at the Kerch Strait, Russia attacked as well as captured three Ukrainian navy vessels, and arrested their 24 sailors. The maritime clash indicates that the focal point of the […]

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International Implications of Ukraine’s Decentralization
February 14, 2019 9 min. read

The local governance reform that Kyiv started in 2014 will, if successful, have cross-border repercussions by way of making the Ukrainian state more resilient, compatible with the EU, and a model for other post-Soviet republics. The currently ongoing decentralization reform in Ukraine leads to beneficial effects for the everyday life of citizens. Public administration becomes […]

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Will Ukraine’s Euromaidan Democrats Eventually Prevail?
January 25, 2019 7 min. read

A recent Forum of Democratic Forces may have finally started the process of formation of a broad pro-reform coalition of largely untainted anti-corruption fighters. On 11th January 2019, Kyiv hosted a congress of various pro-reformist grouping that together announced their support for the presidential candidacy of former Minister of Defense Anatoliy Hrytsenko. In fact, the […]

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Ukraine’s Upcoming Presidential Elections: The Ambivalence of the Zelens’kyy Candidacy
January 17, 2019 9 min. read

Most political experts in and outside Ukraine have reacted negatively or very negatively to the announcement, on New Year’s eve, of Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelens’kyy that he will become a candidate in Ukraine’s presidential elections scheduled for 31 March (first round) and 21 April 2019 (second round of the two front-runners). Indeed, Zelens’kyy’s submission is […]

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Why Warsaw Should Go Soft on Kyiv
January 8, 2019 16 min. read

The recently intensifying memory conflict around the interpretation of some World War II events, between Ukraine and Poland, is distracting the two intertwined nations from their main international challenges and some critical tasks today. An increase of Ukrainian national security is in the core interests not only of Kyiv, but also of Warsaw. An odd […]

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How to Talk about Ukrainian Politics in the West?
January 4, 2019 11 min. read

Hyperbolic warnings about allegedly disastrous consequences of a Tymoshenko presidency are demobilizing Western support for Ukrainian reforms and defense My recent article “What Would a Tymoshenko Presidency Mean?” for the Ukraine Alert of Washington’s Atlantic Council has caused indignation among numerous Ukrainian experts and journalists – some of them hitherto close colleagues and professional friends. […]

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As Good as It Gets: Why the West Should Start Preparing Itself to a Ukraine under President Tymoshenko
December 22, 2018 14 min. read

The prominent Western commentator of post-Soviet affairs Taras Kuzio has recently come forward with a barrel of English-language attacks on Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko – so far, the clear front-runner in Ukraine’s upcoming presidential elections in March 2019. Kuzio has placed several critical and partly denigrating texts about Tymoshenko in reputed analytical outlets, such […]

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Why and How a New Democratization of Russia Can Happen and Be Supported: The West Should Get Ready for and Promote a Different Post-Soviet Future
September 21, 2018 18 min. read

Western comments on Russian domestic and foreign affairs have, during the last years, become more and more gloomy. Among other topics, this pessimistic discourse (to which I too have contributed) features Putin’s neo-imperial plans for the post-Soviet area, the many varieties of post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, the fragility of the geopolitical grey zone between the Kremlin-dominated […]

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The Glazyev Tapes, Origins of the Donbas Conflict, and Minsk Agreements
September 13, 2018 17 min. read

What are the origins of the armed conflict that has been raging in eastern Ukraine since 2014? Which role did Russia play in the emergence and escalation of the originally unarmed confrontation, in the Donets Basin (Donbas), after the victory of the Euromaidan revolution? When, how and to what degree exactly did Moscow get involved? […]

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Whom Does Crimea Belong to? Russia’s Annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula and the Question of Historical Justice
September 11, 2018 31 min. read

[Translated from Ukrainian, by VoxUkraine.] The Kremlin media’s well-known narrative of a supposedly almost unanimous support among Crimea’s population as well as of the allegedly profound historical justification for the annexation has many supporters not only in Russia, but also among numerous Western politicians, journalists, experts, and diplomats. Often, these commentators consider themselves – in […]

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