Central & Eastern Europe Archive

WARSAW, Poland—Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, war refugees have been flooding across the country’s western border into Poland, greeted by local Poles, international volunteers and a few small NGOs operating in the country. How is this effort going three weeks into Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II? In Poland this week, I asked these questions of journalists, aid workers and Polish citizens. The reality is, almost as unprecedented as the refugee flows is the absence of most of the big NGOs that Americans think of—and are most likely to donate money to—when it comes to a refugee […]

On March 2, the European Union announced that the Russian state-sponsored channels Sputnik and RT would be banned from broadcasting within the union, citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Kremlin’s “systematic, international campaign of disinformation, information manipulation and distortion of facts.” And British media regulator Ofcom announced today that it was taking RT off the air after an investigation found it was “not fit and proper to hold a license in the UK.” The dangers of the propaganda spouted by RT and Sputnik are considerable. These outlets sow divisions, cleave societies, threaten free and fair elections—and, now, shield […]

Diplomats in Brussels breathed a sigh of relief yesterday following the safe return of three leaders from the European Union’s eastern bloc who made a surprise visit to Ukraine earlier this week. The prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Tuesday evening. Their visit was cheered across Europe as a brave gesture of support and solidarity for Ukraine. But for EU diplomats, the unilateral initiative was nonetheless alarming news that does not bode well for the continental and trans-Atlantic unity on display within the EU and NATO since Russia’s invasion three weeks […]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pits two of the world’s major wheat and corn producers against one another, has deep implications for several grain-importing countries. Grain prices had already risen steadily over the past year due to pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and increasing energy prices. The war further pushed these prices to an all-time high in February, seriously rattling an already shaky global food system. While some commentators are calling for trade measures that would facilitate alternate sources of grain exports to make up for the shortfalls, what is really needed is a major rethink of the conventional food security […]

On the night of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, South African Defense Minister Thandi Modise attended a reception at the Russian Embassy in Pretoria, held in honor of the Russian armed forces. Four days later, officials from the ruling African National Congress, or ANC, celebrated 30 years of Russian-South African friendship over drinks at a reception held at the Russian consulate in Cape Town. Though both episodes are shocking, neither should come as a surprise. South Africa’s foreign policy has been on a long, downward ethical trajectory since the Mandela era, when the promotion of democracy and human rights were […]

As the war in Ukraine rages on and China faces growing pressure to end its diplomatic tap dance around the conflict, Beijing is increasingly shifting its attention toward providing humanitarian aid and brokering peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. But although Chinese officials continue to insist on Beijing’s neutrality on what it describes as “the Ukraine crisis,” China’s refusal to take a side may come at a high cost. At the moment, Western observers are even worried that China might begin to actively back Russia in the conflict. Russia has already turned to China for military hardware and aid in […]

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, social media feeds have brimmed with portrayals of Ukrainian women’s remarkable spirit of resistance. In one widely shared video, a woman confronts a Russian soldier occupying her city, telling him to put sunflower seeds in his pockets so that when he dies on Ukrainian soil his grave will sprout the national flower. In a similarly widely shared tweet, a female parliamentarian described how her weekend gardening plans were scuttled by the need to learn how to handle a gun. Yet, as women’s contributions to the war effort have gone viral, much of the response, including […]

Almost exactly 75 years ago, on March 12, 1947, then-President Harry S. Truman, alarmed by Soviet aggression in the Eastern Mediterranean and its efforts to undermine war-ravaged democracies in Western Europe, announced a dramatic reorientation of the United States’ national security policy. Addressing a joint session of Congress, he committed the U.S. to a new global mission to contain the Soviet Union by “support[ing] free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures.” The speech set off a 15-week frenzy of diplomatic activity that culminated on June 5 with the proposal of the Marshall Plan. This new grand strategy—now known as […]

In the 1980s, when Afghanistan was embroiled in a war between Soviet forces propping up a client government in Kabul and the CIA-assisted mujahedeen insurgency, the country became a hotbed of global jihadism, as radical Islamist fighters, most infamously Osama Bin Laden, flocked there to wage armed struggle against the communists. Several billions of dollars worth of covert U.S military assistance went to training and arming the Islamist guerilla fighters, including with Stinger antiaircraft missiles, which greatly hampered Soviet air power. What the U.S government couldn’t know at the time was how the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan would go […]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the reaction it has drawn from the United States and the European Union, has been described by many observers as having “revitalized the liberal international order,” as Kori Schake of the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute wrote in The Atlantic. Ivo Daalder, the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, tweeted that “the West isn’t weak, divided or declining after all.” Other commentators have drawn similar conclusions following the stronger-than-expected response on both sides of the Atlantic to Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. But many observers outside the core countries of the […]

As the war in Ukraine enters its third week and the refugee crisis in neighboring countries intensifies, among the many heartbreaking stories in the international spotlight is the separation at the border of Ukrainian families fleeing the fighting. As The New York Times’ Daily podcast reported, fathers, brothers, boyfriends and husbands as well as single men between the ages of 18 and 60 are being forced to stay and enlist in Ukraine’s military, while women of all ages are not only being allowed over borders but actively encouraged to flee. This denial of the right to flee on the basis of age and […]

The European Union’s 27 leaders are in Versailles today for a summit that could prove to be historic. They are expected to sign the “Versailles Declaration,” intended to formalize the far-reaching but ad hoc policy changes the EU has implemented in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is now entering its third week. The measures under discussion would strengthen the union’s existing military, economic and border control capabilities, while also giving the bloc new powers in those areas that will push it further down the path toward federalism. The symbolism of the decision to sign the declaration at the Palace […]

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India—which is currently a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council—has drawn scrutiny for having abstained multiple times on votes in the Security Council, U.N. General Assembly and U.N. Human Rights Council on resolutions criticizing the Russian aggression. Instead, the Indian Mission at the United Nations issued a nuanced statement calling for an “immediate cessation of violence” in Ukraine, without publicly condemning Russia’s actions—a move that pleased neither its Western partners nor Russia. The Russian-Ukraine war puts India in a difficult position. On the one hand, India wants to avoid antagonizing the U.S., a long-time […]

Scarcely more than a week ago, Chinese social media and the country’s internet were ablaze with quick takes from both prominent commentators and ordinary folks praising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed bid to subdue Ukraine, as well as with fervent celebrations of what many in China saw as a toothless reaction from the West. The responses from Chinese voices like these, more emotional and nationalistic than lucid and analytical, saw in Putin’s defiance of the United States and Europe more evidence of the unstoppable rise of authoritarian states like their own, and of the longed-for decline of the West. Although […]

Russia has a long history of using disinformation and propaganda to advance its interests, and the war in Ukraine is no exception. Washington has so far reacted effectively, but the next phase of the conflict will bring new challenges, and the U.S. government and U.S. technology companies will need to push back on Russian tactics in ways that affirm democratic principles. For months preceding the invasion, the Kremlin deployed a concerted propaganda campaign designed to lay the groundwork for justifying it. This campaign included a deliberate effort to cast Ukrainians as Nazis and the perpetrators of genocide against Russian speakers […]

In an article titled “Putin’s War in Ukraine Will Not Stay in Ukraine,” published on the morning of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein argued that the ramifications of this conflict would ricochet throughout Europe. Some sort of curtain, he wrote, “seems destined to descend” across the continent. But in addition to this spatial dimension of the fallout from this war, we should also be thinking about the generational aspects of its effects. Time and time again, we have seen that conflict exacerbates intergenerational injustice. When war breaks out, children and young people inherit tensions that they did […]

While the world remains fixated on the horrific human and political consequences of the conflict in Ukraine, there has been an undercurrent of discourse comparing the extreme attention to this conflict to the intermittent and waning interest over the past few years in civilian suffering and acts of aggression in places like Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia or Somalia. More could and should have been done in those other conflicts. But there are significant reasons for acute attention to the Ukraine crisis, which might be seen as a war within a larger war—and one that is sure to have ripple effects […]