The Eurasian Economic Union by 2020: Expectations, Challenges, Achievements
June 16, 2020
The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), an organization for regional economic integration between five post-Soviet states, marked its fifth anniversary on January 1, 2020. Its founding treaty, signed first by Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, then followed by Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, celebrates six years in May 2020. The EAEU is the most developed form of integration among post-Soviet states. As a contractual, rules-based regime, it differs qualitatively from a number of previous fragmented and unsuccessful integration initiatives in the post-Soviet space.
Health of democracy in the CEE countries amid coronavirus epidemic
May 15, 2020
What is the proper balance between public health safety and personal liberties, and what are the threats to liberal democracy during the pandemic? Do autocracies mitigate the impact of the coronavirus better than democracies? These questions will likely continue to be debated as the global coronavirus crisis progresses. As Oleksii Kovalenko and Eka Maghaldadze argue, one thing is already clear: Some central and eastern European rulers are seeing the pandemic and the public health crisis as a perfect pretext to silence critical voices and consolidate their power.
Коронавирусная эпидемия: Сценарии последствий для Беларуси
April 04, 2020
Коронавирусная эпидемия стала значимым непредсказуемым глобальным событием, которое вне всяких сомнений сильно и разнопланово отразится и на Беларуси. Задержка с реализацией действенных стратегий, направленных на подавление распространения коронавируса, неминуемо приведет к меньшему количеству спасенных жизней.
Belarusian foreign policy: a time of crisis or rebirth?
March 17, 2020
Do strained relations with Russia imperil Belarus’s traditional maneuvering strategy in international relations? Are so-called “multi-vector” strategies in post-Soviet Eurasia coming to their end? Ekaterina Pierson-Lyzhina and Paul Hansbury argue that the opposite may be the case: the current complex geopolitical environment could well foster the birth of more sophisticated and responsive foreign policies among post-Soviet states such as Belarus.
Sputnik Belarus’s Propaganda and Disinformation: Narratives, Methods, and Trends
March 10, 2020
A new study by Andrei Yeliseyeu explores propagandistic narratives of Sputnik Belarus and methods of its promotion based on systematic monitoring of content published by Russian-language Sputnik Belarus webpage in 2019. Sputnik Belarus, established in late 2014, is a part of Sputnik, a Russian news agency and radio broadcaster which publishes online stories and radio shows, as well as videos.
Belarusian NGOs strategies to strengthen youth engagement
February 24, 2020
A new study by Andrei Yeliseyeu, Research Director of the EAST Center, explores the barriers to youth engagement and offers a set of recommendations to improve it. Earlier studies and sociological data demonstrate that only around 15% of Belarusian young people take part in civil society activities, while around twice as much are willing to do so.
CSOs’ activities in Belarus: overall situation and latest trends
December 06, 2019
This study by EAST Center’s Research Director Andrei Yeliseyeu gives an overview of CSOs’ activities in Belarus and the latest trends in various aspects of CSOs’ functioning. It is based on analysis of official documents, specialized reports, and deep interviews with a number of leading experts, practitioners, and civil activists.
Ukrainian Journalists at the Forefront of Countering Russian Disinformation
December 02, 2019
“Russian and Ukrainian media spheres looked like Goliath and David, respectively. And Davids beat Goliaths mostly in fairy tales,” Ukrainian journalist Pavel Kazarin, long-time researcher of pro-Kremlin propaganda, says. The biblical account of David and Goliath explains a difficult battle against Russian disinformation in Ukraine. Resisting anti-Ukrainian propaganda has become a daily routine for the Ukrainian journalists in the last five years. Oleksii Kovalenko looks into how Ukrainian journalists and media professionals are resisting the constant pressure of pro-Kremlin fakes.
The Kremlin will continue destabilizing Ukraine with disinformation
November 29, 2019
By 2019 Ukrainian Stopfake analyzed around 1,000 of pro-Kremlin disinformation cases since 2014, most of them targeting Ukraine. Anti-Ukrainian propagandistic and disinformation attacks are not fading away. EUvsDisinfo website reports on hundreds of new cases of repeated, reinvented, and reproduced anti-Ukrainian lies. Oleksii Kovalenko looks into the question, what Kremlin attempts to achieve by directing at least a third of its disinformation machine’s capacities against Ukraine, and how Kremlin’s destabilizing attacks changed over the last five years.
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