Category: Eurasia

Ukraine sanctions Russian social media amid Crimea’s virtual blackout

     

Ukraine has moved to block access to top Russian social media sites and search-and-email portals, adding them to a list of companies and individuals sanctioned over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea… Read more »

As West dithers, Russia ups its game in the Balkans

     

Tensions are rising between west and east and over the Balkans. Albania, Macedonia, Serbia and other Balkan countries that aspire to EU membership remain a long way from entry because… Read more »

Russia’s info warfare stoking tensions, sowing discord – not advancing coherent ideology

     

Russia has recently been accused of stoking tensions in the Balkans by waging ‘information warfare’ in the region, notes Jarosław Wiśniewski. Even if these allegations are true, the West should… Read more »

Six ways to combat Russia’s political jiu-jitsu against democracies

     

  Russia’s information warfare is a form of political jiu-jitsu, reflecting its belief that the simplest way to take down a democracy is to turn its most powerful asset, the open… Read more »

Authoritarians mobilizing illiberal non-state actors against democratic forces

     

Authoritarian regimes are mobilizing and orchestrating ‘uncivil’ society groups and illiberal non-state actors against democratic forces, reports suggest. The uniformed men who shot Venezuelan pro-democracy demonstrator Carlos Moreno were not… Read more »

Hungary ‘copying Russia’ by targeting university?

     

As an American scholar of Soviet history, Charles D. Shaw thought he understood authoritarianism before he moved to Hungary in 2015 to teach at Central European University, the New York Times reports: “Coming from… Read more »

Evidence confirms Russian hackers, fake news targeting Europe’s elections

     

The campaign of the French presidential election candidate Emmanuel Macron has been targeted by what appear to be the same Russian operatives responsible for previous attacks on elections in Western democracies election,… Read more »

Is Russia’s anti-corruption movement Putin’s Kryptonite?

     

  Russian President Vladimir Putin today criticized opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, indirectly accusing him of using his anticorruption campaign to gain political prominence, RFE/RL reports: Without naming Navalny in comments… Read more »