After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, governments in the former Soviet Union were immediately forced to deal with difficult geopolitical realities. In this report for the ELN, YGLN member Daniel Shapiro uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to show there is increased heterogeneity in geopolitical positioning among post-Soviet states and offers key lessons from this for Western policymakers.
The Russia-Ukraine war has brought an abrupt end to a certain nuclear complacency that has characterised European politics since the Cold War, writes Andrew Futter. The immediate challenge facing governments across the Euro-Atlantic space appears to be maintaining a credible nuclear and conventional deterrence capability and pursuing risk reduction and confidence-building measures.
Alexandra Filippenko explores the reasons why Russian civil society institutions failed to prevent the war in Ukraine and suggests a number of measures that Western democracies may take together with Russian opposition leaders to end the war and establish a lasting peace.
Alisiya Ivanova is a Junior Analyst at the Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations (Belarus). She also holds a position of an Assistant Project Manager at Project Syndicate (Czech Republic). Alisiya is also acting as an Administrative Associate at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue...
In September 2022 Russia was expelled from the European Convention on Human Rights due to its invasion of Ukraine. Since then, the remaining member states of the Council of Europe have placed a greater importance on stabilising and safeguarding the European Court of Human Rights system, which currently struggles to implement its judgments and ensure compliance. Nikita Gryazin and Julia Glukhikh explore how to best improve the efficacy of the court in the face of these issues.
Important questions remain about future Arctic regional cooperation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Next month, Norway will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from Russia and diplomatic efforts are already underway to ensure the transfer goes as smoothly as possible. Gabriella Gricius explores three possible scenarios of what this Arctic Council could look like.