In June, the Contact Group convened for a two-day in-person meeting in Istanbul to discuss the future of the Group and exchange views on the state of, and prospects for, Russia-West relations.
From the 26th-29th of June, the Younger Generation Leaders Network (YGLN) met in Vienna for their annual gathering. Over the course of the week, YGLN members met with various international organisations and diplomatic missions, fostered insightful discussions, and were able to network and collaborate with one another. Read the commentary for a full account of the annual gathering.
Although Sweden’s pending NATO membership is a move in the right direction for enhanced stability in the Euro-Atlantic zone, President Erdogan’s perceived “triumph” in setting the terms of Swedish membership could have serious operational and strategic challenges for NATO in the future, writes Nima Khorrami.
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.
This week, representatives of the states parties to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe will convene in Vienna to discuss the withdrawal of Russia from the treaty. Pál Dunay writes that the remaining CFE states parties are facing a dilemma: if the state that the arms control regime wants to engage is leaving the regime, what is the meaning of the arms control agreement for those actors that stay?
As the security situation in Kosovo deteriorates significantly, the ELN’s Senior Associate Fellow Nick Williams writes that although this latest violence is local in origin, it has deeper roots and much wider implications.