Când două state se urăsc și planifică răzbunări și atacuri, ceea ce rămâne în urmă sunt orașe și sate distruse, sute, dacă nu mii de oameni morți și răniți și foarte, foarte mulți refugiați care trebuie să își ia viața de la zero.
The coronavirus pandemic was accompanied by a genuine wave of fake news, the second in merely a decade. The false narratives in this wave are repurposed and updated: the disinformation they spread are disguised to come across as local topics and concerns. The Kremlin has thus adjusted its strategy for spreading disinformation to Romanians’ notorious Russophobia.
The strategic partnership between Romania and the USA will enter a new stage, after the signing last Thursday of a very important agreement between the Romanian state-owned company Nuclearelectrica and the US NuScale Power on the deployment in Romania of small modular nuclear reactors, known as SMR, which will give access to a new source of clean energy.
This war among Muslim extremists might seem peculiar. Their ideologies are strikingly similar. Most of their fighters originate from the same region and share the same cultural and ethnic background. Their number one enemy is the West, embodied by the United States, whose withdrawal from Afghanistan is perceived by many as a defeat. Rather, their rivalry is more nuanced and has to do with their divergent worldviews and their distinctive approach to religion and jihad. Their dispute is also highly political, as they both fight for supremacy and prestige. Finally, their clash reflects the old rivalry between al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The Prosecutor General of the Republic of Moldova was arrested on October 5 for corruption. This is the latest in a series of scandals over this institution. Will it mark the true beginning of judicial reform, or are we dealing with a new stage in the war over the control of a vital institution?
Since Lenin, many communist leaders have tried to play and promote chess. Most of the time, these leaders were pathetic players, who were not able to face a tournament of medium and even amateur level; except, perhaps, for one organized only among themselves, an event which, however, never took place, despite the socialist friendship between their peoples. But that did not stop the same communist leaders from turning chess into a powerful propaganda tool during the Cold War. And in this respect, the Soviets were indeed champions.
Two months before the Presidential elections, Radev is the only candidate, and with an approval rating soaring above 65%, he stands a good chance of being re-elected. Supported by parties opposing the local politics status-quo, Radev is trying to build a stronger persona and a long-term presence on the political scene
September 11, 2001 was the bloodiest landmark in the global jihad proclaimed by Osama bin Laden and his allies against the United States. Terrorists launched the attack in the name of liberating the holy sites which they claimed had been occupied by “crusaders” and “Zionists.” 9/11 convinced the Americans they had to hunt down jihadis all over the world. After 20 years and several wars, spanning from Central Asia and the Middle East to Africa, the global jihad continues.
The United States made three big mistakes in Afghanistan - two before 9/11, and the third after invading the country. One every decade since the 1980s.
Authoritarian states like Russia and China use the capital to increase their political clout. However, their investments and the loans they grant are not as advantageous as they are advertised, and one of their hidden costs is the undermining of democratic values and standards.
During the 30 years since the Republic of Moldova gained its independence, the language spoken in that country has been skillfully used not only as a bone of contention in domestic identity disputes, but also as a tool in the hybrid war waged by Russia on the territory of the Republic of Moldova and beyond.
The Republic of Moldova proclaimed its independence in the wake of the breakdown of the USSR, but also as a result of the national rebirth movement at the end of the 1980s. In the 30 years that have since lapsed, Moscow has used a number of pressure points – a population with a doubtful identity, the frozen conflict in Transnistria, the monopoly on natural gas, its political clientele, etc. – in order to uphold its influence in the area between the Prut and the Dniester rivers.
Viktor Orban’s domestic “pro-family” policies made him a champion for the conservatives engaged in the so-called “culture wars”.
The pro-Russian Czech President seems determined to get rid of the country’s head of domestic intelligence, whose job is to stop Russian spies. The intelligence chief used to be supported by the Prime Minister, but with elections looming, the latter now needs the President by his side.
The possibility of destroying the ammunition of Soviet origin kept in depos in the village of Cobasna, in the Transnistrian separatist region, has aroused Moscow's interest, at least at a declarative level.
Turkey is increasingly in favor of a two-Cypriot solution and is working to persuade other states to recognize Turkish Cyprus. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems to have taken on the Cypriot cause in order to attract the nationalist electorate to his side in the run-up to the 2023 elections.
The study of hybrid impact tools and technologies for their application is now becoming a necessity for most European countries. It should be understood that their application lasts long enough to form the basis of the study, and the need for countermeasures will remain relevant for many years.
This Sunday Bulgaria is going through a new round of parliamentary elections, following the inconclusive ones from April which saw ruling party GERB lose votes and a Parliament dominated by opposition. The elections were called after no common ground was found between any of the parties in search of a coalition. The coming Parliament looks set to be as fragmented as the one that brought early elections. What will happen next is, thus, anyone’s guess. One thing seems sure though: long-serving former prime-minister Boyko Borissov will not return to power.
Boris Johnson and Viktor Orban share a way of doing politics: they’re both populists craving for the spotlight, ready to exploit in their favour the divisions of their respective societies. They also share an irreverence for the European Union. Johnson was one of the leading figures of the Leave camp, while Orban became a nuisance for Brussels as he kept on defying, time and again, the EU values and policies. The two seem to use the same recipe to consolidate their grip on power, so it only makes sense that their respective oppositions may eventually take similar paths.
Early parliamentary elections will be held in Moldova on July 11. The list of candidates is long, with no less than 53 parties and electoral blocs officially registered to take part in the race for 101 parliament seats. Of these, no more than six have a real chance of crossing the electoral thresholds of 5% for parties or 7% for electoral blocs consisting of two or more parties. Veridica carried out a brief x-ray of the electoral programs proposed by the main competitors.
Seven months after a complicated presidential election, the Republic of Moldova is again in the grip of election fever. This time around, the country will be hosting snap parliamentary elections, but the background, protagonists and stakes are mostly the same. The main battle will be pitting the center-right pro-Western Action and Solidarity Party (PAS), previously led by president Maia Sandu, against the center-left pro-Russian Party of Socialists (PSRM) led by the former president Igor Dodon.
Alternative social networks have also emerged in the problem countries of the EU, Poland and Hungary, where the right and the far right are looking for platforms that do not restrict posting radical content. These networks have emerged as both the Kaczyński regime and the Viktor Orban regime already exercise significant control over the media in their countries.
With the early parliamentary election in the Republic of Moldova around the corner, the political and economic chatter is again focusing on the benefits for Chișinău. The matter has again sparked a polemic: would it be better for the Republic of Moldova to head east or west? A persistent question which Moldovan politicians have been juggling with for three decades, while Moldova remains one of Europe’s poorest and most corrupt countries, with one of the largest shares of population migration.
The case of Vrbětice – the revelation that explosions of ammunition depots in 2014 were apparently caused by agents of the Russian military intelligence GRU – shook relations between Prague and Moscow in April. In May, there was a quake on the domestic political scene.
The unionist movement in the Republic of Moldova has always benefited from the contribution of some intellectuals and could count on the votes of about 10% of the electorate. This electorate has become increasingly fragmented in recent years, amid differences between unionists, who have split into competing parties. The centrifugal trend has worsened over time and it is very likely that not even for the snap elections of July 11 the unionist forces will be able to coagulate.
Under a conservative AKP regime since November 2002, Turkey has initiated numerous construction projects in the early 2010s, presented obsessively to the public as signs of the country's growth as major regional power. Leaving aside that they contribute massively to the destruction of the environment, they also threaten to become long-term financial "black holes", consuming insatiably taxpayers' money for generations to come.
After tensions in the 1990s and the war in Kosovo, Belgrade's relations with NATO have fundamentally improved, as Serbia has sought to break out of the isolation of the Milosevic era. The partnership with NATO is a constant in Serbia's policy, but the relationship is only partially assumed: the authorities emphasize the country's neutrality, the media focuses on the much weaker cooperation with Russia, and the population sees no gain in a possible NATO integration.
Russian claims that EU and the USA are allegedly interfering in the parliamentary election in Chișinău, scheduled for July 11. On May 13, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said “it is regrettable to see the growing interference of the United States and EU countries in the domestic politics of the Republic of Moldova, something which we firmly condemn”.
Bulgaria braces for new parliamentary elections on July 11 which fuels the unpredictability in the country’s political life and raises several questions - will GERB return stronger or weaker, will popular singer and talk show host Slavi Trifonov continue his political rise after being a runner-up in the April elections, will the far-right see a resurgence after surprisingly low results? While politicians are trying to find some common ground, Bulgaria’s slow vaccination rollout, the still present COVID-19 pandemic, EU’s Green Deal and the previous government’s spending all remain unaddressed.
Making predictions before elections in the Republic of Moldova means hazarding a guess. Such an action requires not only knowledge and intuition, but also a lot of luck and a special flair for anticipating last-minute backstage arrangements. However, the campaign for the snap parliamentary elections due on July 11 has kicked off, and based on current data and trends, we will analyze who the actors are and what chances they stand at the moment. A dirty election campaign is announced from the left wing, which seems ready to bring into play resources that are incomparable to those available to the right.
The Czech Republic has announced that it is expelling 18 Russian diplomats, following the sabotage of an ammunition depot by Moscow’s agents. The measure seems to have been taken without consulting all the domestic key players or Prague’s Western partners: in the days that followed, both the lack of cohesion of the state authorities and the hesitations of external partners to show solidarity were apparent.
A religious movement in Poland, with ties in Brazil and ramifications within the Warsaw administration, is behind a drive to impose an ultra-conservative agenda in Catholic countries in the EU.
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