Eurasia Press & News

As Moldova and Russia spar again over Moscow’s military presence in the breakaway region of Transnistria, BIRN looks at what it would take to end this decades-long dispute. Relations between Moldova’s new elected pro-European president, Maia Sandu, and Russia started off on the wrong foot when Sandu immediately vowed to …

Local versions of Facebook have been launched in Poland and Hungary, though experience shows that technology ventures conceived with politically biased and nationalistic motives rarely succeed. Poland and Hungary have seen the launch recently of locally developed versions of Facebook, as criticism of the US social media giants grows amid …

The Czech Communist Party’s brazen siding with China worries parts of the political establishment and the security services, especially given it provides support to the minority government in return for influence on policy. Facing a panel of stern officials backed by red flags in a cavernous chamber, a pudgy grey-haired …

A Biden administration initiative to centralise power at state level in Bosnia – while decentralising it at local level – will not necessarily bring any more stability and inclusion to the country. With a change to the US administration in sight, discussions about expected changes in Washington’s policy towards the …

Kosovo must make use of a new, more sympathetic, administration to leverage US support on core issues affecting its security, legitimacy and energy supply. With Joe Biden now inaugurated as US president, Kosovo has four years to leverage assured support. Biden has more foreign policy experience than any other recent …

The prosecution file in a case of alleged electoral fraud in a remote Albanian region in 2016 lays bare an industrial-scale campaign of vote-buying and intimidation up and down the ranks of the country’s ruling Socialist Party. As yet, no one has faced justice.

Ankara and Athens, starting in 2002, held 60 rounds of talks before their exploratory efforts came to a halt in 2016. After a five-year-long pause the rivals agreed to resume talks on January 25, starting the 61st round. “The idea that a strategic — so-called strategic — partner of ours …

“You get the impression that Armin Laschet still believes in a partnership with Putin’s Russia. He ignores the fact that there simultaneously is both a geopolitical and a value conflict with Moscow. This conflict requires a certain degree of severity, a policy of deterrence and also a policy of sanctions. …

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) major industrial nations have condemned Russia for the “politically motivated” detention of Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny and the “violent suppression” of protesters demanding his release over the weekend.

Saab and the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, (FMV), have signed two agreements concerning the next generation of surface ships and corvettes. A Product Definition Phase for the Mid-Life Upgrades (MLU) of five Visby-class corvettes, as well as a Product Definition Phase for the next generation; Visby Generation 2 corvettes. The …