Over the past year, the health of the former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who is serving a six-year prison sentence, has been a major topic of political debate both inside and outside of Georgia. The opposition and Saakashvili's lawyers say he should be transferred to a European clinic to be treated for mental illness, personality deterioration and severe depression. The government claims that the former president is faking it. Finally, signals are coming from Brussels that if Mikheil Saakashvili dies in detention, Georgia's European future could be jeopardized.
When it came to power, the pro-European government promised to reform the judiciary and bring to justice the oligarchs who embezzled state funds and are now hiding abroad. Vladimir Plahotniuc, Ilan Shor and fugitives from “the London group” seem to continue to enjoy protection from the system they helped build and are supporting efforts to oust the current pro-European administration. On the other hand, the authorities also rely on the support of the country’s Western partners, who seem to have understood that oligarchs are pressing for closer relations with the Russian Federation.
Estonian city Narva and Russia’s Ivangorod are connected by a Friendship Bridge, a name that sounds quite ironic nowadays when many Ukrainian refugees use the bridge to make their way to Europe. They had to go East, then North, as their route West was blocked by the fighting. A network of Russian and Estonian volunteers has been helping these refugees. While some continue towards other European countries, many decided to stay in the small Baltic country, which is starting to feel overwhelmed.
Between December 26 and 27, 2022, the informal Summit of the leaders of the CIS states took place in the city of Sankt-Petersburg. The meeting should have shown that this Russian-dominated organization, which for years has been trying to present it as an alternative to the more attractive EU and NATO, is relevant and viable, that Moscow enjoys the support of its ex-Soviet partners even in the conditions of the war in Ukraine. Speeches about cooperation cannot mask the reality: the CIS is an outdated organization, in crisis, which has no serious long-term prospects.
The war in Ukraine, sovereigntist rhetoric and conspiracy theories regarding the so-called sanitary dictatorship were the topics of scores of disinformation narratives and fake news published in Romania in 2022. They were promoted by/on various media outlets (România liberă, Național, Activenews, GoldFM, gândește.org etc.) as well as on social media by controversial figures such as Sorin Roșca Stănescu, Cosmin Gușă, Diana Șoșoacă and Adrian Severin.
The war launched by Russia in Ukraine also led to an intensification of the use of propaganda materials, fake news and disinformation targeting the Republic of Moldova. The goal was to discredit the West and undermine the values it promotes, but also to blame the pro-European government for the economic and social issues initially triggered by the Covid pandemic, then by the war.
The war still haunts the refugees, even though some left Ukraine months ago. The memory of Russian bombing is still alive for them. They speak all the time to their relatives back home, who give them regular updates on what’s happening. They keep thinking of going back home. A few tens of thousands out of the millions of Ukrainian war refugees chose to stay in the Republic of Moldova. Mariana Vasilache spoke to some of them at her childhood school, which is now their new home.
Efforts to combat climate change have had mixed results in 2022, which are best described by the saying “one step forward, two steps back"”. While governments are still slow in taking decisive action, the effects of climate change are already being felt. To diminish their impact and magnitude, there is an urgent need for the United States and China to agree in 2023 to combat them.
On February 24, 2022, the free world woke up to a dystopia. It had believed in peace more than it did in the signs of war, and had invested Putin with its good faith, just as it had done with Hitler in the years leading up to World War II. Russia has reintroduced large-scale war into a post-modern, hedonist society whose instincts were weakened by peace and prosperity, thus restoring evil to a global standing. Prior to the launch of the invasion, Europe hadn’t seen an interstate conflict in over 75 years. Any counterfactual examination is obviously pointless, but still, the question remains: how could the West fail again to foresee the predictable advent of a totalitarian regime with fascist overtones and the start of a new war in Europe?
In recent years, Turkey has increasingly tried to project its power outside its borders, be it the Mediterranean Sea, with Cyprus and Libya as key pieces in Ankara's policy, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, or the Caucasus. To achieve its goal, Ankara has relied on aggressive diplomacy, its defense industry and its military. This policy will continue in 2023 and its big stakes are Northern Cyprus and energy.
The decision of the four countries to leave the International Investment Bank (IIB), also known as the “Russian Spy Bank”, came within days of Russia invading Ukraine. The legal proceedings were cumbersome in certain countries, due to the financial risks such a move entailed. Set up in 1970, the Bank continues to operate today in Budapest, although key decisions are taken in Moscow.
Rich Western countries with important markets are a major stake for China. Chinese companies are also present, to a lesser extent, in Central and Eastern Europe. But is this region a stake in itself for Beijing, or just a “stop” on the New Silk Road to the West? How extensive are bilateral relations and to what extent are they influenced by the West? Veridica collaborators in the region – Bulgaria, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Moldova, Poland, Romania and Ukraine – have tried to answer these questions.
As the years pass, the last witnesses to the nightmare of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death factory where more than a million Jews from all over Europe were exterminated, are passing away. What remains is the camp itself, and the objects within it that allow historians and conservationists to learn the stories of individuals. Their stories not only help to understand the tragedy of the victims who were exterminated here, but add a human, personal dimension to these memories.
Millions of Ukrainians headed to Romania when Russia attacked their country. Instead of a land of poor and hostile bandits, as the propaganda had described it, they found the help and shelter they needed - even if there were also marginal voices spreading, as everywhere in Europe, disinformation about refugees. Some of them stayed, others moved on. Veridica has the stories of some of them, from the first days of the war until now.
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The meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers held in Bucharest over November 29-30 was not overlooked by Russian officials, nor propaganda media. Moscow interpreted the event in its own, different key, without however introducing new elements in terms of rhetoric. The allegations brought to the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance are the same: NATO has reached beyond the purposes it was originally designed for, it is promoting an all-out war against Russia while using the territory of other states, it is supplying Kyiv with weapons, prolonging the war indefinitely.
The political parties in Romania have not been able to outline a program or a strategy to do politics in the Republic of Moldova, but they are interested in the votes they could get from there, as, according to estimates, some one million Moldovan citizens are also Romanian citizens in documents, and that makes a significant electoral pool. Four parliamentary parties from Bucharest are currently fighting for the votes of the Bessarabians: PSD (Social Democratic Party) PNL (National Liberal Party), USR (Save Romania Union) and AUR (Alliance for the Union of Romanians). Veridica wanted to find out how these parties are positioned before the 2023 local elections in the Republic of Moldova, but especially in the run-up to the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections in Romania.
The World Cup in Qatar has been marred by controversy ever since the small Gulf emirate was named host of the tournament despite doubts about the country's human rights record. Many of the problems related to the Championship have, apparently, nothing to do with sports, but the big international competitions are not only about sports, they are always about politics as well.
Originally developed as surveillance aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – commonly known as drones – underwent a number of transformations, from aircraft used to carry out tactical airstrikes to weapons included in the arsenal of modern warfare, the same as artillery and aviation. Drones play a key role in the war in Ukraine as well, where in recent weeks they have been primarily used as instruments of terror.
Turkey has bombed Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria in response to the bomb attack in Istanbul, warning this is just the beginning. A wider operation in Syria would help the Erdoğan regime draw attention away from the country’s economic troubles. Besides, it might also be a first step towards solving the refugee crisis. Russia, a country involved in the Syrian conflict, could turn a blind eye to Ankara’s moves because it is interested in exporting natural gas via pipelines transiting Turkey.
The war in Ukraine is not going well for Russia and the regime of Vladimir Putin, who threw his country into the affair. Although Putin forced all his people to say in February 2022 that Ukraine must be destroyed, the final decision was his and he will answer for it, alone or with others. And that’s why many Western and Russian analysts started wondering whether Putin's “reign” is coming to an end and who might succeed him.
Syria remains a country ravaged by conflict and a deep humanitarian crisis, a place of conflicting interests of multiple state and non-state actors, says the Chargé d'Affaires of the European Union to Syria, Dan Stoenescu*. In an interview for TVR and Veridica, Dan Stoenescu explained that, although it doesn’t recognize the Assad regime, the EU keeps communication channels open in order to provide assistance to the Syrian people. The EU official also spoke about the link between the war in Syria and the one in Ukraine.
The Internet caught fire last week with the fake news that the world's billionaires, led by Elon Musk, would celebrate Halloween in Romania. From the joy of the traders along the entire Rucăr - Bran corridor, to the currency dealers’ hope for some lucrative combinations and culminating in the raging of a delicate senator filled with authentic, countryside orthodox sentiments, we all had our own expectations from, reactions to and opinions about the (pseudo)event.
While the Kremlin backs the criminal opposition in Chișinău, which is trying to destabilize the Republic of Moldova in order to take power and discard any criminal investigation against itself, Russian propaganda touts the protests staged by Shor Party, the anti-Western statements of the former Socialist party and criticizes the current head of state, Maia Sandu. Veridica has reviewed the main narratives advocated by the Russian government media with respect to the Republic of Moldova.
Alex Jones, one of the best known American conspiracy theorists, was sentenced to pay nearly 1 billion USD after claiming for years the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting never actually took place and was actually staged. The sentence represents a landmark for combating the increasingly toxic phenomenon of fake news. The battle might have been won, but the war wages on.
Many Russians who have fled Putin’s partial mobilization have ended up in Georgia, and their presence in this country is creating demographic, economic, political and, obviously, social problems. Besides, Tbilisi authorities cannot be sure whether each of these migrants is a fugitive or if they are agents on Moscow’s payroll. All that is generating a national security predicament that must be managed in due time while the country is trying to maintain its European track, after failing to secure the EU candidate status this year.
In the first half of 2022, Turkey seemed to be trying to tone down its aggressive policies in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Yet all these efforts were but a ruse. In fact, Ankara never renounced key elements underlying its aggressive strategy. It has recently actually dialed up its aggression in relations with Tripoli, which can further deteriorate the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
A genuine taboo of international relations, which responsible leaders always sought to avoid in times of crises, the nuclear “button” has become commonplace in Russian rhetoric in recent years. Drawing on his crude professional experience, which is based on operative textbooks and a number of heroic legends fabricated by Soviet propaganda, Putin is confident that restraint is but a sign of fear. Lacking in any sense of intellectual finesse, the Russian leader has managed to trivialize the nuclear threat, which proves he doesn’t always have a good understanding of the terms he uses.
Serbia has been, for years, Russia’s closest ally in the Balkans. For Moscow, the relationship is a means to project an image of power and international relevance. Belgrade, on the other hand, plays the pro-Russian card to show that it has an alternative to a West that bruised its ego during the Kosovo war, but also for some pragmatic reasons, such as Russia’s support in the UN Security Council and its role as an energy provider. Belgrade’s real interests lie, however, with the EU, and the war in Ukraine may bring about a change – albeit a slow one – in its relationship with Russia.
Education today faces major challenges arising from a lack of good resources and the strong emotions that the war in Ukraine brings. We spoke with three history educators from Poland and Ukraine about the ways in which the war is affecting their work, both personally and professionally.
Despite causing heavy criticism and dissatisfaction with their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, taxes, and other issues, Prime Minister of Latvia Krišjānis Kariņš, and his party “New Unity” will most likely form the new government following the parliamentary elections held on October the 1st. However, the elections did significantly alter the landscape of Latvian politics.
Pakistan has recently faced one of the biggest natural disasters in the country’s history. Tens of millions of people were affected by the far-reaching floods caused by the massive rainfall reported in this year’s monsoon season. Islamabad claims the intensity of this disaster is a result of climate change. This launches a new warning against the devastating effects of this phenomenon.
French President Emmanuel Macron's project for a “European Political Community” is back in the spotlight after months of not much talk about it. It is known that the project also targets partner states outside the EU, but it is not at all clear what it means for the countries that want to join the EU; there are fears that, through the formation of the Community, accession could be postponed indefinitely, that the executive in Brussels will support the French proposal.
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