Category: Central/Eastern Europe

Putin’s ‘formidable influence machine’ at work in French poll

     

Russia, or at least its state-controlled news media, has been interfering in the French presidential election, the New York Times reports: Cécile Vaissié, a professor of Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet… Read more »

Crimintern: How the Kremlin uses Russia’s criminal networks

     

Over the past 20 years, the role of Russian-based organised crime (RBOC) in Europe has shifted considerably, notes Mark Galeotti, senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague… Read more »

The End of the Postnational Illusion?

     

With the advance of modernization, nationalism was supposed to fade away. Yet even in advanced democracies, nationalism’s influence seems larger than ever. What did we get wrong? analyst Ghia Nodia… Read more »

Russia’s latest victim in Ukraine — reform

     

Russian-sponsored unrest could threaten not only Ukraine’s reform process, but Kiev’s post-revolutionary order, argues analyst Molly McKew. The real influence of Russian banks in Ukraine is hard to measure, but… Read more »

Western democracies ‘floundering’ in internet clash of ideas?

     

  Russian efforts to influence the French presidential election show that the central aim of the Kremlin’s media outlets and networks is to foment fear and mistrust outside Russia and… Read more »

Hungary ‘backtracks’ in row over CEU, as protests persist

     

Hungary denied on Wednesday that a new education law was aimed at shutting down a university founded by U.S. financier George Soros, and suggested a possible compromise in a dispute… Read more »

West moves to counter Kremlin’s hybrid warfare: Russia vulnerable to reverse information campaign

     

If you want evidence of how technology has made diplomacy less diplomatic and information warfare less subtle, take a look at @RussianEmbassy, the Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in London, the Washington… Read more »

Democracy down but not dying

     

Democracy has unquestionably lost its global momentum, note Carnegie Endowment analysts Thomas Carothers and Richard Youngs. But those who despair the future of democracy tend to focus on a select… Read more »

Will the Balkans be Russia’s next virtual battlefield?

     

Russia’s efforts to project its power abroad are likely to continue and to expand, observers suggest. The Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns seek to “crumble democracies from the inside out” by “winning… Read more »

Bosnians united against ISIS, divided on partners

     

Stability and democracy in the Balkans have suffered even as the prospect of EU accession has stabilised relations and driven reform in a turbulent and impoverished region, Reuters reports: Kristof… Read more »