easterneurope
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko becomes chairman of the All-Belarus People’s Assembly, a newly established extra-governmental body. Two hospitals in Kyiv were evacuated following threats from the head of the Belarusian KGB. Lithuania demands Minsk retract claims it was preparing for drone attacks on Belarusian targets. Subscribe to the Newsletter Belarus Weekly The Belarusian service of German media outlet Deutsche Welle is declared an extremist organization and banned in Belarus. The Belarusian Cyber Partisans group claims to have hacked KGB servers, accessing 40,000 denunciation rep...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Georgian police again attacked protesters gathered by the parliament building in Tbilisi on the evening of May 1, injuring at least eight, authorities reported. The injuries were severe enough to require the hospitalization of the eight individuals, one of whom has already been discharged. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered again the day after Georgian police violently attempted to disperse a demonstration in opposition to the controversial "foreign agents" law the ruling Georgian Dream party is attempting to pass. Undeterred by the previous night's violence, protesters urged the parliam...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
TBILISI, Georgia – The ruling Georgian Dream party staged a massive rally in Tbilisi on April 29, with tens of thousands of people bussed in from around the country to support the country's democratic backsliding. Party leaders, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, and Bidzina Ivanishvili, the founder of the party and the country's richest man, gave a series of speeches marked by anti-Western rhetoric and conspiracy theories. The rally coincided with a parliamentary committee's approval of the controversial foreign agents bill, which is set to pass the secon...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Belarusian parliament passes bill expanding Investigative Committee's access to citizens' personal data without their consent. Lithuanian parliament rejects conservative proposal to cancel residence permits of Belarusians traveling to their home country. Subscribe to the Newsletter Belarus Weekly In a move mirroring Russia, Belarus’s Culture Ministry classifies depictions of non-heterosexual relationships as “pornography.” Former presidential candidate Andrei Dzmitryeu released after serving a full 18-month prison term, while other top Lukashenko opponents remain behind bars, held incommunicad...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
The European Parliament overwhelmingly supported a resolution condemning Georgia's controversial foreign agents law in a vote on April 25. Georgia's parliament passed a controversial foreign agents bill in its first reading on April 17. The bill, which must be passed on two more readings before it becomes law, would require organizations that receive foreign funding to be labeled as "foreign agents." It would also allow authorities to more strictly monitor communications, including internal discussions, by such organizations. The bill was first introduced in 2023 by Prime Minister Irakli Kobak...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Georgia's parliament passed a controversial foreign agents law in its first reading on April 17 as protests in opposition to the legislation continued for the third night. The law must be passed in two more readings before it can become law. The bill, first introduced in 2023 by the ruling Georgian Dream party, would require organizations that receive foreign funding to be labeled as foreign agents. Widespread demonstrations broke out at the time in protest of the proposed law, and it was eventually abandoned in March 2023. The Georgian Dream party recently reintroduced the legislation in parl...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Immediately after World War II, the Paris-exiled Polish intellectual Jerzy Giedroyc (of Lithuanian origins, born in Minsk) coined a phrase that would come to define Poland’s foreign policy toward its eastern neighbors: “There will be no independent Poland without an independent Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine.” Since the fall of communism, it has been an article of diplomatic faith in Warsaw. Ukrainian patriots, who inspired current Ukrainian policies, have thought similarly. Even if Ukraine fully liberates its Russian-occupied territories, Poles and Ukrainians will not feel truly secure as lo...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Although local elections often don’t make international news headlines or involve widely recognizable household names, anyone who cares about the state of liberal democracy would do well to pay attention to them. In Turkey, for example, recent elections not only revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; they also offered broader lessons for long-struggling opposition parties about how to select effective candidates and run effective campaigns. Poland’s local elections on April 7 were another case in point, because they offered the first ...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Adam, a Tajik migrant, navigates daily life in Moscow amidst growing scrutiny and suspicion: since the Crocus City Hall attack, he's been taken to the police station every other day. He also faced discrimination from common people: "I was followed and then asked to leave a grocery store because people were 'uncomfortable' shopping around me. It is mad." His experiences reflect a broader issue—racial discrimination is intensifying, fueled by state policies and public sentiment in the wake of the attack. Human Rights Watch's 2024 report paints a bleak picture of human rights in Russia, emphasizi...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
Russian state television has been vocal in painting Western democracies, especially the U.S., as the reason for all of Russia's problems. The desire for U.S.-made products inside Russia, however, remains high, with the country's providers turning to illegal schemes to cover the demand. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hollywood's biggest film studios stopped selling their films to Russia. Despite that, Russian movie theaters have continued showing U.S.-made films, now pirated from online platforms. And instead of a crackdown on piracy, the Russian government is now con...
Kyiv Independent (UK)
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