Central & Eastern Europe Archive

Karate coach, firefighter, bodyguard, Interior Ministry chief and now prime minister. Boyko Borissov has had an eclectic career, and if the protesters on the streets of Bulgarian cities have their way, he’ll soon leave the prime minister’s office for the third time. The burly, pugnacious politician is accused of presiding over a state that has been captured by a cabal of oligarchs and corrupt officials. Antigovernment demonstrators say the situation should shame the European Union, which Bulgaria has been a member of for over a decade and which provides billions of euros in development funds each year. Borissov’s time as […]

Something about the idea of Europe becoming a strategic actor in global affairs brings to mind the old Irish saying: May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead. Strategic autonomy has long been a recurring refrain for advocates of a more forceful Europe, one that is a rule-maker, rather than a rule-taker, in the shifting world order. But the European Union never seems to get any closer to realizing that goal, mainly due to internal divisions between member states over what interests to defend and advance, and wariness over the loss of sovereignty in […]

Belarus’ long-ruling dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, is resisting calls to step down amid a historic wave of antigovernment demonstrations and strikes. Throughout the momentous period of unrest, one of the big questions is how far Russian President Vladimir Putin would be willing to go to support his ally. Belarus is a strategically vital country for Russia, and is also a key concern for NATO, as it shares borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, all members of the trans-Atlantic alliance. On the Trend Lines podcast this week, WPR columnist Candace Rondeaux joined Elliot Waldman to discuss some of the scenarios that could […]

For many Belarusians, Alexander Lukashenko is the only leader they’ve ever known. He has maintained a tight grip on the country since first becoming president in 1994, but Lukashenko now faces the greatest challenge yet to his rule. He claimed victory in a presidential election earlier this month that was widely decried as fraudulent, and took place amid a wave of pro-democracy protests across the country. The unrest has only grown after official election results showed Lukashenko winning around 80 percent of the vote. A bloody crackdown on protesters by security forces last week left at least two people dead […]

Which dictator is more trustworthy, Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus? In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because the governments of both Russia and Belarus are probably lying about the arrest last week in Minsk of 33 Russian men identified by Belarusian authorities as mercenaries affiliated with the so-called Wagner Group, a network of private military security contractors linked to U.S.-sanctioned Kremlin insider Yevgeny Prigozhin. For more than a week, speculation has run rife about the arrests and their possible connection to alleged Russian interference in Belarus’ upcoming presidential election on Aug. 9. The mystery surrounding the […]

Authoritarian leaders have taken advantage of the coronavirus pandemic, intensifying their efforts to undercut the democratic norms that restrain their power. Some of those leveraging COVID-19 for their autocratic agenda are in the European Union, where they have created dilemmas for the bloc for years. And yet, this crisis has also created opportunities. If managed skillfully, the EU can convert the upheaval of the pandemic into a turning point, at long last exerting meaningful pressure to start reversing Eastern Europe’s undemocratic, illiberal tide. Last month, EU leaders managed to craft a muscular economic rescue package to deal with the pandemic’s […]

VIENNA—Just before breaking for their summer recess, in early June, ambassadors to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had one major item on their agenda. The terms of the organization’s four top leaders were set to expire in mid-July, so the OSCE planned to reappoint each of them for another three-year stint. The extensions were widely seen as mere formalities—nothing out of the ordinary. But then, on June 11, a letter of protest from Azerbaijan changed everything, turning an otherwise routine decision into a political power struggle that culminated in the toppling of the OSCE’s entire senior leadership […]

KYIV, Ukraine—For nearly three decades, President Alexander Lukashenko has relied on a mix of vote-rigging, obedient state media and pure coercion to retain power in Belarus through “a series of unfair contests,” according to democracy watchdog Freedom House. This week’s presidential election will be no different. Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet republic since 1994, is virtually guaranteed to sweep the polls. But the mustachioed strongman will have few opportunities to rest on his laurels, experts say. A deteriorating economic situation and his mishandling of the coronavirus crisis have fueled discontent in recent months, while a newly unified opposition […]