Technical negotiations between the U.S. and Russia to establish a ceasefire in Ukraine are ongoing in Saudi Arabia today. Reports suggest that parties will discuss a 30-day truce, not just in the energy sector but also in the Black Sea, which is expected to pave the way for the resumption of shipping route.

What has particularly drawn experts' and media's interest is the appointment of Sergei Beseda as the head of the Russian negotiation team. Beseda, the former head of the Fifth Service of the Federal Security Service, continues to serve as an advisor to the director of the FSB. In essence, Beseda is a chief ideologue of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His department compiled analytical reports that gave Vladimir Putin the confidence that Kyiv could be occupied within three days, Russian soldiers would be welcomed with flowers, and President Volodymyr Zelensky would either be killed, flee, or live in exile. "The feeling that their path would be strewn with flowers was the FSB's assessment," a Western security official told The Washington Post.

They were so sure they would soon control Kyiv's government that they spent the last days before the war setting up safe houses for their operatives in the city.

According to The Washington Post, for decades, the Fifth Service spied in Ukraine, aiming to dominate governmental institutions, bribe officials, and prevent Ukraine's closer alignment with the West. After the initial days of the invasion, the service's leadership fell out of grace: Beseda and his deputies were placed under house arrest.

There were even reports of his detention in Lefortovo prison. The reasons cited were misappropriation of funds for operations in Ukraine and failed intelligence work.

Despite rumors of Beseda's dismissal, pro-Kremlin outlets maintained that he continued in his role, participating in various events. Thus, Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov's comment confirming Beseda's presence at talks indirectly marked the first acknowledgment of his removal from the Fifth Service, which he led since 2009, purportedly due to reaching the service's age limit of 70, and reassignment as a consultant to FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov. Russian media speculate this role change may indicate that Putin still trusts him. It's also noted that in February 2014, during the Maidan protests in Kyiv, Beseda met with the fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych and, since July of that year, has faced sanctions from the U.S., EU, Canada, UK, Australia, Switzerland, and Ukraine. In October 2023, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov described Beseda as a "very problematic figure" for Ukraine.

Istanbul police assaulted Russia Today (RT) correspondent Yasin Eken and his cameraman while they were covering protests in the city, the Russian state-run outlet claimed on March 24.

“They were hit with batons, also had their RT signs ripped off, had their gas masks smashed, then tear gas was sprayed in their direction,” the outlet’s Telegram channel claimed, publishing footage of the incident.

RT is widely regarded as a key propaganda tool of the Russian government, spreading disinformation and pro-Kremlin narratives under the guise of independent journalism.

Many countries have restricted or banned RT due to its role in justifying Moscow’s aggression and manipulating global audiences.

The incident occurred amid large-scale protests in Istanbul following the arrest of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a prominent opposition figure and potential presidential candidate.

Imamoglu faces charges of corruption and alleged links to terrorist organizations, accusations he and his supporters claim are politically motivated.

His detention has triggered widespread demonstrations across Turkey, with thousands defying government bans to protest in Istanbul and other cities.

US-Russia talks begin in Saudi Arabia, Russian media reports

The meeting, which comes only a day after talks between the U.S. and Ukraine, is expected to focus on a possible ceasefire in the Black Sea and a broader truce.

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Valeriia feels the familiar tendrils of fear through her body as she walks into the hospital for her routine checkup.

Her HIV diagnosis is no longer a death sentence – one jar of pills means another month of life-saving medication. But today, the doctor slid just three blister packs across the counter instead of the usual six jars.

Stocks are dwindling. No one can tell her when, or if, more will come.

About 120,000 HIV-positive people are facing the same crisis across Ukraine. Since Trump took office in January, he has cut American foreign aid, which was key for Ukraine to obtain supplies for HIV treatment.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. government is also considering cutting domestic HIV prevention programs, which threatens to undo twenty years of efforts to fight the virus.

It's not just about aid - it's about a global health crisis caused by politics. Without prevention and treatment, new infections will increase, people will die, and the impact will be felt far beyond Ukraine, demonstrating how decisions in Washington can jeopardize public health around the world.

“Every time I go to bed, I am grateful I have these pills. Thanks to them, I have lived today and will live tomorrow. And usually, I know that I will live another six months or a year of my life, so I have medicine. But now it's only three months. And it scares me,” Valeriia said.

Valeriia Rachynska, 48, has been living with HIV for 15 years. She discovered it when a doctor suggested she and her husband take an HIV test amid a months-long illness of her husband that had remained undiagnosed for several months.

Both tests were positive.

HIV cannot be cured, but it is possible to reduce the viral load in the body so as to effectively eliminate the chances for transmission and minimize any symptoms. With a carefully planned cocktail of drugs, an HIV-positive patient can contain the condition.

As of this year, there were 336.1 HIV-positive patients per 100,000 people in Ukraine. Meanwhile in the United States, this figure is 388 per 100,000 in 2022.

For the past decades, international NGOs have been sending supplies to treat HIV to Ukraine, as Kyiv’s economy does not have the capacity to produce its own. A few years before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s government assigned a portion of its state budget to begin producing the medicine locally.

However, following Russia’s attack in 2022, NGOs considered it too risky to continue sending supplies to Ukraine.

There was a risk that about 120,000 HIV-positive Ukrainians would be left without medication at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Yevheniia Rudenka, head of procurement at the ‘100% Life’ charity organization, said.

Suppliers did not want to risk going to Ukraine, she added.

“Back then [in 2022], at the most critical moments, they [doctors] would only give us medicine for a month. I know there were cases when doctors were forced to give out medicines for only two weeks because if they gave them for a month, someone would not have them tomorrow,” Valeriia said.

Through USAID, the United States stepped up its efforts to provide treatment in Ukraine, Rudenka said.

“The situation was critical then, but the United States came to the rescue,” Yevheniia said. “And thanks to this, this catastrophic pause did not happen in 2022. The support also continued in 2023 and 2024,” she said.

When Valeriia was diagnosed with HIV, Ukraine was forced to ration its antiretroviral medications due to a lack of ability. Supplies were prioritized for those in a more advanced and critical stage.

Doctors monitor a patient's CD4 cell counts, which show how healthy your immune system is. Since Valeria's count was within the normal range at the beginning of her diagnosis, she was not provided any medication.

Yet, at the end of 2010, the year she was diagnosed with HIV, her CD4 count dropped sharply to just 147. Healthy adults will have a measurement anywhere from 500 to 1,500.

She should have started treatment immediately after being diagnosed with the condition, she said.

“It was clear that I should have started treatment even before the tests. I felt sick all the time and lost 10% of my weight. I also had herpes that wouldn't go away and several other problems. It seemed to be nothing serious, but I was sick all over,” Valeriia said.

After her CD4 count dropped, Valeriia began treatment, taking five pills in the morning and six in the evening. In two months, her symptoms had disappeared. As the years went by, HIV treatment became more sophisticated, requiring patients to only need one pill a day to contain the symptoms.

Yet, treatment is only effective if it's not interrupted, and medications are taken consistently.

In January, Trump decided to suspend all international support for 90 days. The American government was expected to deliver $20 million worth of medicine to Ukraine in 2025, Yevheniia said.

“Currently, deliveries of 16 million [dollars] worth of goods have been suspended, and the remaining four million are in the process of delivery,” Yevheniia added.

The World Health Organization said this month that Trump’s decision to pause U.S. foreign aid will also affect HIV treatments in Haiti, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Nigeria.

At the moment, HIV patients in Ukraine can use any of the 21 available HIV medications. Kyiv has stock for most of them for just six months, Yevheniia said.

If Ukrainians do not find alternative funding sources to resume supplies, the situation could become critical for well over 100,000, experts warn.

“People who make such decisions must realize their full responsibility. This may not just let the epidemic that we have been fighting for the last 20 years get out of control. It can lead to death. And this is not an empty word. Specific people will die, some very quickly, and some very slowly,” Valeriia said.

Now, Valeriia is hoping the crisis will be solved before the fall, and that she will be able to receive her usual six jars of pills the next time she goes to the doctor.

“I used to know I had another six months or a year to live, but now I realize that my life is limited to three months,” Valeriia said.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

UKRAINE MAY HOLD PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: A decision regarding elections in Ukraine has already allegedly been made, and they will take place, U.S. Special Representative Steve Witkoff said in an interview with Tucker Carlson. He emphasized that Russia does not recognize Zelenskyy as the legitimate president, which is why the Kremlin "can't sign any kind of treaty with him." According to the Constitution of Ukraine, any elections are not lawful during martial law.

Meanwhile, Witkoff stated that he does not consider Putin to be a "bad person." During his second visit to Russia, Putin allegedly ordered a portrait of Trump from a leading Russian artist and asked to have it delivered to him.

"He [Putin] told me a story, Tucker, about how when the president [Trump] was shot, he went to his local church, met with his priest, and prayed for the president—not because he could become the president of the United States, but because he has a friendship with him and he was praying for his friend," Witkoff recounted.

VOA SUES TRUMP: Journalists from Voice of America and their unions have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, Reuters reported. They claim that the closure of news agencies violates the Constitution, infringing workers' right to freedom of speech.

Voice of America became the latest victim of the Trump administration’s large-scale campaign to reduce the federal government, which allegedly spends taxpayer money in ways that do not align with U.S. interests. As a result, a week ago, agency employees were sent on administrative leave. This could mean the de facto closure of Voice of America.

RUSSIA MAY RETURN TO THE OLYMPIC GAMES: The International Olympic Committee is considering allowing Russians back into the Olympic Games, according to a newly elected IOC President, Kirsty Coventry, in an interview with Sky News. She is against banning athletes from participating in competitions due to conflicts.

Russian and Belarusian athletes participated in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris despite Ukraine's protests. However, they competed under a neutral flag, and their participation was individual, not representing their countries.

CAT OF CONFLICT

Today's cat of conflict is Simba, who took over Mariana's workspace for a peaceful lunch nap, preventing her from working on her next story for The Counteroffensive.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Mariana

On a Sunday afternoon in mid-February, a small but politically charged event took place in the heart of Amsterdam.

A group of eight people gathered for a photo-op protest on the city’s Dam Square holding placards that called for an end to Western arms deliveries to Ukraine and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The event was part of an international campaign that stages small protests in several countries to advocate for elections in Ukraine, its organizers wrote on Facebook. Martial law imposed in Ukraine at the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion prohibits the country from holding elections.

The Dutch community page that called on people to participate in the protest claimed the event was “coordinated by Ukrainian refugees.” Strangely enough, it appears there were no Ukrainians at the gathering.

Of the eight demonstrators who showed up in Amsterdam, five were Dutch and two were Russian. The identity of one remains unverified by the Kyiv Independent.

Without attracting much attention on the streets, participants quietly unfolded their placards bearing blunt and provocative messages: “Ukraine is evil for Dutch taxpayers” and “Zelensky! Stop killing your people!” Another read “Sponsoring Kiev is sponsoring terrorism against Ukrainians,” using the Russian spelling for Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv.

No Ukrainian flags were seen at the protest, despite the organizers’ claim that Ukrainians had coordinated the event. The only country flag present was Russian, with the words “Peace with Russia” written on it.

Protesters took turns posing with different posters. The messages on the posters warned of war between NATO and Russia, calling for a Ukraine without Zelensky, blaming Zelensky for Russia’s full-scale invasion, and demanding the end of “forced mobilization” in Ukraine.

While a small event, the gathering was part of a larger anti-Ukraine movement posing as a peace initiative that has been ongoing for over two years.

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The Kyiv IndependentAlisa Yurchenko

Network of Dutch Russians

After the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, a group of Dutch activists took to the streets in response to what they perceived as the establishment and media inciting warmongering and hatred toward Russia. Since February 2023, the group, which operates under the name “Vredesdemonstratie” meaning “Peace Demonstration” in Dutch, has been holding monthly protests.

At these events, demonstrators advocate for ending military aid for Ukraine — who they blame for the war along with NATO — and making peace with Russia. Their banners usually feature phrases such as “No weapons for peace” or “Peace with Russia” in both Dutch and English.

The foreign military aid, including assistance from the Netherlands, which the group so passionately opposes, has been critical to Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from Russia’s invasion.

Among individual countries, the Netherlands ranks fifth in total military aid, contributing 5.88 billion euros between Jan. 24, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2024, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks aid to Ukraine.

Although they present themselves as a movement of “pacifist idealists,” members of Peace Demonstration make their demands solely of Ukraine and its supporters, and never of Russia.

The reason for this approach becomes clear as soon as one looks at the composition of the participants: many of the most active protesters at these rallies are Dutch Russians — migrants of Russian origin who settled in the Netherlands long ago. Some have lived in the Netherlands for over 20 years.

The group’s demonstrations often feature Russian flags and sometimes include cultural performances, such as singing traditional songs, dancing, and wearing traditional attire.

Despite their clear ties to Russian culture, the protesters never identify as being members of the Russian diaspora. It appears that they purposefully keep the origin of the protests blurry, trying to pass the events as Dutch or Ukrainian.

Among those posing with a Russian flag in a recent photo-op protest was Natalia Vorontsova, also known as Nata Heezen. As a co-organizer, she is a key figure in nearly every Peace Demonstration event.

Originally from Russia’s southwestern city of Voronezh, Vorontsova has lived in the Netherlands for over 20 years. She works as a nurse in mental health care.

Alongside fellow activists Nikita Ananjev and Elena Plotnikova, she has been lobbying for Russian interests in the Netherlands since 2014, the year when Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Today, it appears, Vorontsova’s main focus is solely on co-organizing Peace Demonstration events in the Netherlands where she’s one of the key faces and voices heard.

She maintains close ties with Russian state media, including TASS and RIA Novosti, whose correspondents often attend the demonstrations and interview Vorontsova for their articles. The published materials are later reshared by Vorontsova in the online groups for protest participants. While their demonstrations attract little attention from the Dutch media, they receive extensive coverage in Russia, making them seem like a large-scale movement.

Meanwhile, Plotnikova remains active primarily on social media and within the Peace Demonstration community. In 2023, she delivered a speech at one of the demonstrations.

Embracing conspiratorial narratives about “NATO missiles killing civilians,” Vorontsova’s demonstrations attract individuals from both far-left and far-right populist circles, united by their pro-Russian sentiment. The pool of guest speakers ranges from communists in anti-fascist movements to MPs from the Dutch far-right party Forum for Democracy (FvD).

An investigation by the Dutch newspaper NRC found that Vorontsova may have received funding for her activities from Volunteers of Victory — a Russian government-funded organization that glorifies Russian military patriotism during World War II and supports Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. Despite Volunteers of Victory being sanctioned by the EU, its Dutch branch Victory Team 75 Netherlands remains active by operating unofficially and avoiding formal registration.

In a conversation with the Kyiv Independent, Vorontsova denied any involvement with the Dutch branch of Volunteers of Victory, stating that she had only worn a cap with the organization’s logo that she received as a gift, but had no connection to the group. She also emphasized that she is an independent activist, acts on her own, and is not financially supported by anyone. According to Vorontsova, she finances the demonstrations with donations from supporters.

Another participant of the February photo shoot in Amsterdam, Iolanta DuCroix, also known as Klimaite Bardash, appears in several photos on the Instagram page of the local branch of Volunteers of Victory. A Russian-born resident of the Netherlands, DuCroix assisted Vorontsova in holding a Russian flag during the photo shoot.

Another participant, Nikita Ananjev, is also a prominent figure in the Russian Volunteers of Victory movement. Known as a coordinator of the Dutch branch, he seems to be present at nearly every one of the organization’s events. He was also a representative of the Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots in the Netherlands, an organization that works closely with the Russian embassy.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ananjev openly expressed pro-Putin views. On his page on Vkontakte — a Russian social media platform — he reposted an image stating: “Kyiv will either be Russian or deserted. And we’re fine with it being deserted too."

When asked about her cooperation with Ananjev, given his active involvement with organizations affiliated with Russia, Vorontsova told the Kyiv Independent that she has not seen Ananjev in years nor collaborated with him on any activities since they were both part of the Dutch branch of the International Platform Global Rights of Peaceful People (GRPP).

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The Kyiv IndependentAlisa Yurchenko

A Ukrainian defector and a Soviet-era emigrant

Although Peace Demonstration’s messaging appears to reflect Russian interests, its members claim that Ukrainians are also among their representatives.

After analyzing dozens of participants in the group’s demonstrations, the Kyiv Independent found only one Ukrainian who actually spoke in person at their protests. The group’s website and social media present the supposed Ukrainian representative as “Elena from Kiev,” using the Russian spelling for both her name and Ukraine’s capital.

In reality, “Elena from Kiev” has not lived in Ukraine since the 1990s, having spent several years in Afghanistan before settling in the Netherlands, according to an interview she gave to AlternatiefTV in August 2023. Her experience of Ukraine is limited to the Soviet era.

Like other participants in the rallies, Elena’s views, as she expressed them in the interview with Alternatief TV, align with a line of Kremlin propaganda that insists Ukrainians and Russians are “the same people.” This view is widely rejected in Ukraine. A 2022 poll found that 91% of Ukrainians do not consider Russia and Ukraine to be “one people.”

Two other Ukrainians appeared at the demonstrations via video message, supposedly from Russia. One of them, Dmitry Vasilets, is a pro-Kremlin propaganda blogger. In 2024, he was sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court to five years in prison for justifying Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, as well as advocating for a violent overthrow of the government.

Vasilet’s criminal record dates back to 2017 when he was convicted of facilitating the broadcast of a Russian propaganda channel in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine. He spent two years in a pre-trial detention center in Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian law enforcement, eleven days before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he fled Ukraine for Egypt and later settled in Moscow, where he declared himself the secretary of the so-called “Representative Office of the Ukrainian People” — a body not recognized by Ukraine.

At Vorontsova’s demonstrations, Vasilets appears on the LED screen, calling himself a leader of the Ukrainian party Derzhava in exile. However, Derzhava was banned in Ukraine in 2022 due to its ties to Russia and was so unpopular that it never gained parliamentary representation. During its only attempt to get into parliament in 2006 as part of the “State-Labor Union” bloc, it earned just 0.14% of the vote.

Moreover, the Peace Demonstration group also claimed to have Ukrainian independent press at one of their press conferences but did not specify which outlet. The Kyiv Independent found only one non-Dutch media platform covering the event — Vasilets’ pro-Russian Telegram channel, Mriya.

The biography of the second Ukrainian, who participated virtually in events organized by Peace Demonstrations in the Netherlands, is no less vivid and far from Ukraine.

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The Kyiv IndependentKostiantyn Nechyporenko

Yanukovych era fugitives

Judging by the social media posts of Peace Demonstration the international pro-Russian photo shoots appear to be coordinated by another Moscow-based organization, the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine.

Its spokesperson, Leonid Ilderkin, is mentioned in posts related to a previous international pro-Russian campaign that features almost identical scripted messages promoting anti-NATO and anti-Zelensky messages.

Ilderkin appeared in a video message for Peace Demonstrations as a so-called “Ukrainian opposition figure in exile.” In the video, he blames the U.S. and Europe for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A native of Dnipro, Ukraine, Ilderkin was previously an activist in the pro-Russian communist organization Borotba, meaning “struggle” in Ukrainian. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Borotba members supported the occupation of eastern Ukraine, with some even taking up arms on the Russian side. After fleeing Ukraine that same year, the group now operates from Russia and recently participated in an event titled the International Anti-fascist Forum in Russian-occupied Luhansk Oblast.

According to documents obtained by the independent Russian anti-corruption project Dossier Center, Russia’s military intelligence agency (known by its Russian acronym GRU) attempted to use organizations linked to Ilderkin to coordinate with the European radical left and recruit individuals for protests and acts of sabotage. The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify this information.

The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine, which has been given a platform by Dutch demonstrations, consists of pro-Russian fugitives.

Among them is Mykola Azarov, Ukraine’s former prime minister under Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted following the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. Azarov participated in a meeting organized by the Union of Political Emigrants in late 2016.

Russian demonstration network in Europe

Although the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine has little media presence and minimal influence on social media, it supports other pro-Russian demonstrations beyond the Netherlands.

For instance, a so-called “Ukrainian political prisoner” from the union addressed pro-Russian demonstrators in the U.K. online from Moscow in August 2024. The “political prisoner” in the video address is the Union’s chairwoman, Larisa Shesler. She is wanted by Ukrainian law enforcement for “undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”  

Shesler, a Ukrainian, played a key role in undermining pro-European protests in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv in 2013-2014. She coordinated the local anti-protest movement and organized pro-Russian rallies before eventually fleeing to Russia.

The Kyiv Independent found out and verified that she had obtained Russian citizenship.

Shesler’s video message to the British pro-Russian demonstrations was picked up and promoted by Theo Russell from the U.K.-based International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity movement. Russell, a British activist, is also involved in the Dutch organization Peace Demonstration, having spoken at events and frequently posted in community groups.

Meanwhile, the YouTube channel Chega Serna English, which has been sharing videos of “Ukrainian political prisoners,” posts footage from pro-Russian rallies in cities like Washington, D.C., Sacramento, Paris, and notably Amsterdam.

The footage reveals a recurring pattern — consistent messaging, tone, and symbols, including Soviet and Russian flags. A unifying theme runs through these rallies: a push to end military aid to Ukraine, a critical lifeline for its defense. This mirrors what was seen in Amsterdam.

Russian influence in Europe remains strong, backed by a vast network of pro-Kremlin actors, some of whom are hiding behind Ukrainian names.

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The Kyiv IndependentKarol Luczka

Note from the author:

Hi, I’m Linda Hourani, the author of this story. Thanks for reading!

I hope this piece serves as a reminder that, in times when Russian disinformation is strong, it is crucial to stay critical and not be misled. If you’d like to help us produce investigative reports like this, please consider supporting our work.

Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko visits Moscow, enacting a security treaty and signing a range of agreements that pull Belarus further into Russia’s orbit.

U.S. President Donald Trump slashes RFE/RL funding in another blow to Belarusian media in exile.

Latvia restricts movement at last open border crossing with Belarus amid migration
concerns.

Japanese citizen sentenced to seven years in Belarus on trumped up charges of spying.

Poland and the Baltic states seek to withdraw from the anti-personnel mine ban treaty.

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Lukashenko, Putin meet in Moscow, enact Union State security treaty

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko made a three-day state visit to Moscow that ended on March 15 – his first official visit abroad following his so-called "re-election” in January. The visit also occurred before the Belarusian autocrat was officially inaugurated as the country’s head of state.

Following talks, Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted the Union State treaty, which the sides have dubbed as “security guarantees.” Signed on Dec. 6, 2024, and ratified in late February, the treaty expands Russia’s military presence in Belarus in exchange for the Kremlin opening its “nuclear umbrella” over Belarus.

The treaty is widely seen as ceding Belarus’s sovereignty over its defense and foreign policy. Since using Moscow’s support to crush mass protests triggered by election fraud in 2020, Lukashenko has been largely cut off from the West, and has increasingly relied on Moscow to keep him in power and to support Belarus’s sanctioned economy.

Now, deeply dependent on Russia, Belarus is providing logistical and military support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. At least 287 Belarusian enterprises supply the Russian war machine, according to Belarusian democratic leader in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Addressing the Russian Federation Council, Lukashenko said there had been an erosion of Belarusian sovereignty, adding that Belarus would not formally merge with Russia in the near future.

“If we were to burst through this open door, we would ruin everything we have done. It is necessary to go calmly, step by step,” Lukashenko said.

Following his speech, Moscow approved an agreement to delay Belarus’s repayment of nearly $800 million in debts. Belarus’s total debts to Russia stand at $8 billion.

RFE/RL journalist and political analyst Yury Drakakhrust described the highly controlled yet officially still independent Belarus as an example of the Kremlin’s desired model for relations with post-Soviet countries — including Ukraine.

The Russian and Belarusian dictators also signed an agreement granting rights to Russian and Belarusian citizens permanently residing in each other’s territories to vote in local elections, further deepening the integration processes between the two states.

Another agreement signed during Lukashenko’s visit was dedicated to the mutual protection of citizens “unjustly persecuted by foreign states or international justice bodies.” The document contains a pledge “to jointly combat the negative trend of the politicization of international legal cooperation in criminal matters.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russian human rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023 over their involvement in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine. The threat of an ICC warrant is also hanging over Lukashenko after Lithuania referred a case against him to the court in September 2024. Human rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the International Accountability Platform for Belarus have also submitted evidence on the regime’s alleged crimes.

Like Russia, Belarus has abused Interpol’s Red Notice mechanism, using it to hunt down the regime’s political opponents abroad.

Polish right takes hard line on Ukraine ahead of presidential vote

With the Polish presidential elections just two months away, two of the country’s leading right-wing candidates have become increasingly antagonistic toward Ukraine and its leadership. Kyiv can ill afford another hostile head of state among its key partners, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign…

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Trump’s defunding of RFE/RL deals another blow to Belarusian media in exile

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko made a three-day state visit to Moscow that ended on March 15 – his first official visit abroad following his so-called "re-election” in January. The visit also occurred before the Belarusian autocrat was officially inaugurated as the country’s head of state.

Following talks, Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin enacted the Union State treaty, which the sides have dubbed as “security guarantees.” Signed on Dec. 6, 2024, and ratified in late February, the treaty expands Russia’s military presence in Belarus in exchange for the Kremlin opening its “nuclear umbrella” over Belarus.

The treaty is widely seen as ceding Belarus’s sovereignty over its defense and foreign policy. Since using Moscow’s support to crush mass protests triggered by election fraud in 2020, Lukashenko has been largely cut off from the West, and has increasingly relied on Moscow to keep him in power and to support Belarus’s sanctioned economy.

Now, deeply dependent on Russia, Belarus is providing logistical and military support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine. At least 287 Belarusian enterprises supply the Russian war machine, according to Belarusian democratic leader in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Addressing the Russian Federation Council, Lukashenko said there had been an erosion of Belarusian sovereignty, adding that Belarus would not formally merge with Russia in the near future.

“If we were to burst through this open door, we would ruin everything we have done. It is necessary to go calmly, step by step,” Lukashenko said.

Following his speech, Moscow approved an agreement to delay Belarus’s repayment of nearly $800 million in debts. Belarus’s total debts to Russia stand at $8 billion.

RFE/RL journalist and political analyst Yury Drakakhrust described the highly controlled yet officially still independent Belarus as an example of the Kremlin’s desired model for relations with post-Soviet countries — including Ukraine.

The Russian and Belarusian dictators also signed an agreement granting rights to Russian and Belarusian citizens permanently residing in each other’s territories to vote in local elections, further deepening the integration processes between the two states.

Another agreement signed during Lukashenko’s visit was dedicated to the mutual protection of citizens “unjustly persecuted by foreign states or international justice bodies.” The document contains a pledge “to jointly combat the negative trend of the politicization of international legal cooperation in criminal matters.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russian human rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023 over their involvement in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from Russia-occupied territories in Ukraine. The threat of an ICC warrant is also hanging over Lukashenko after Lithuania referred a case against him to the court in September 2024. Human rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the International Accountability Platform for Belarus have also submitted evidence on the regime’s alleged crimes.

Like Russia, Belarus has abused Interpol’s Red Notice mechanism, using it to hunt down the regime’s political opponents abroad.

Trump’s defunding of RFE/RL deals another blow to Belarusian media in exile

Seventy years of U.S.-backed broadcasts promoting democracy worldwide may come to an end after U.S. President Donald Trump on March 14 signed an executive order eliminating seven federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees RFE/RL and Voice of America (VoA).

For Belarus media in exile, the order serves another major blow to the independent press, which have been outlawed in Belarus and forced into exile. An earlier USAID funding cut in January affected around two-thirds of Belarusian outlets, with about 20% pushed to the brink of closure, according to the independent Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ).

Trump’s executive order put 1,300 VoA employees on administrative leave and terminated the U.S. Congress-authorized grant for RFE/RL. In response, on March 19, RFE/RL filed a lawsuit against USAGM and its officials to block the funding halt. So far, the Belarusian service of RFE/RL continues to operate, although some freelancers have been let go.

RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said that canceling the organization’s funding “would be a massive gift to America’s enemies.” Propagandists in Russia, meanwhile, celebrated the decision.

RFE/RL launched its coverage in Belarusian in 1954. Unlike in Ukraine or Russia, the Belarusian service of RFE/RL was never permitted to open an official bureau in Belarus and was never granted FM broadcasting rights. In December 2021, the regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko officially deemed the Belarusian service to be an “extremist organization.”

The independent journalism fostered at the Belarusian service of RFE/RL kickstarted the development of the media industry in Belarus — the service’s first correspondent on the territory of the then Soviet Belarus, Ales Lipai, later founded the first independent Belarusian news agency, BelaPAN.

Beyond being among the few Belarusian-language media, Radio Liberty is the last outlet preserving pre-Soviet spelling and grammar norms, which were later altered to make written Belarusian more similar to Russian. The shutdown of Belarusian Radio Liberty would eliminate this norm from public use.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said losing RFE/RL and VoA would be a “grave mistake,” calling them “symbols of the free world.”

Former RFE/RL journalists Ihar Karnei and Ihar Losik remain behind bars in Belarus, serving sentences of more than three and 15 years, respectively. Another Belarusian correspondent, Andrei Kuznechyk, was recently freed in a U.S.-brokered prisoner release. Belarusian propaganda aired interviews with the prisoners in an attempt to undermine Radio Liberty’s coverage of the 2020 anti-government protests in Belarus.

Since strangling popular protests against the rigged 2020 presidential elections, the Lukashenko regime has raided and shut down independent outlets, blocked websites, and jailed 41 journalists and media workers. Thirty-three media workers have been labeled extremists, and 12 have been declared to be “terrorists.” Donating to or advertising with one of the 38 banned media is punishable by up to five years in prison.

About 400 media workers have fled Belarus, relying on foreign grants to keep their newsrooms operating in exile.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said EU foreign ministers discussed the functioning of RFE/RL at a meeting in Brussels on March 17. The bloc cannot automatically fund Radio Free Europe, she said, adding that the EU will look into potential options.

Ten European countries backed the proposal to fund RFE/RL, Czech Minister for European Affairs Martin Dvorak announced on March 18. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky did not rule out that the European Union might buy Radio Free Europe from the United States.

EU approves over $2 billion in economic support for Moldova

The Reform and Growth Facility, which includes 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in low-interest loans and 385 million euros ($420 million) in grants, will cover the period of 2025-2027 and is part of the EU’s long-term Moldova Growth Plan.

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

Latvia restricts movement on sole remaining border crossing with Belarus

The Latvian government, seeking to prevent the inflow of illegal migrants into the country from Belarus, on March 19 limited traffic across the country's only remaining border crossing with Belarus for motorized vehicles.

Similar measures extend to the two checkpoints on the Latvian-Russian border.

Belarus orchestrated an artificial migration crisis in 2021 by channeling flows of nearly 8,000 irregular migrants from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to Belarus's borders with the EU. The crisis was reignited with the Kremlin's backing in 2022, prompting Poland and the Baltic states to declare it a "hybrid attack" aimed at destabilizing the region.

Latvia's decision prohibits pedestrians and bicycles from crossing the border at Patarnieki-Hryharouschyna, the last operating border post between Latvia and Belarus, for six months. According to Border Guard Chief Guntis Puyats, the possibility of a full shutdown is not ruled out if the irregular migration flow again becomes critical.

The Latvian State Border Guard requested that the government approve the partial closure on March 17, following a nine-hour halt of operations at the checkpoint due to the threat of irregular migration.

According to Puyats, border officers decided to block all traffic movement on the border after they noticed about 30 migrants, predominantly men aged between 20 and 35, with no visas or residence permits, who were seeking to cross the border.

"We understand that this is an instrumentalization of migration," the border guard chief said on air on Latvian TV3.

The Belarusian State Border Committee said that the temporary traffic block had been caused by "a group of Africans traveling to the European Union with valid documents," without specifying whether the foreigners actually had visas to enter the EU.

Latvia's State Border Guard has stopped 254 illegal border crossing attempts from Belarusian territory since the beginning of 2025. In 2024, according to border guards data aggregated by the independent news outlet Pozirk, there were around 30,000 border crossing attempts — 14% less than in 2023 — with 85% of the attempts occurring on the Polish-Belarusian border. Since the onset of the artificial migration crisis, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland have built physical barriers along their land borders with Belarus and shut down several border crossings.

The Latvian government is actively discouraging its citizens from traveling to Belarus. Two proposals were submitted to parliament in February to prohibit travel companies from organizing trips to Russia and Belarus and to ban passenger transportation with each of the two countries.

Japanese citizen sentenced to 7 years on politically motivated charges in Belarus

After subjecting Japanese citizen Masatoshi Nakanishi to trial on alleged “undercover activities,” a Belarusian court sentenced him to seven years of imprisonment, the maximum term for the offense, the Belarusian Prosecutor General’s Press Office reported on March 17.

A key Russian ally, Belarus has intensified the persecution of foreign nationals since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the Viasna Human Rights Center. At least 19 foreigners have been tried and sentenced in Belarus for “undercover activities” — a vaguely defined act of “cooperation” with a wide range of foreign or international entities.

The court convicted Nakanishi for allegedly taking over 9,000 photos of civilian and military infrastructure, including military and railway facilities. Belarusian authorities also claimed Nakanishi traveled to the Ukrainian border. The court imposed the maximum possible prison sentence and a fine of around $6,500.

According to a documentary aired on Belarusian state-run TV, Nakanishi lives in Homiel, a regional center near Belarus’s border with Ukraine, and was officially employed as a Japanese language instructor at the local university. The first news of his arrest was published in September 2024, although he was actually arrested in July 2024.

Jailed foreign nationals are often used as bargaining chips by the regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. In August 2024, Belarus released a German citizen, Rico Krieger, who had been subjected to a swift trial and sentenced to capital punishment on charges including “undercover activities.” Lukashenko “pardoned” Krieger and released him as part of a historic East-West prisoner swap in August 2024, assisting Moscow in returning the Russian killer Vadim Krasikov from prison in Germany.

In 2022, Swiss-Belarusian dual national Natallia Hersche was released after a year-and-a-half in a Belarusian prison following “intense efforts” by Switzerland’s Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. Swiss newspaper Der Bund linked the appointment of a Swiss ambassador to Belarus in February 2022 to the freeing of Hersche.

Belarus still holds around 1,200 political prisoners, at least 36 of them foreigners, under a range of politically motivated charges.

Estonian citizen Alan Royo was prosecuted for slandering Lukashenko and founding an extremist formation, while Latvian citizen Jurijs Ganins was charged on March 13 with discrediting Belarus, calling for sanctions, and insulting Lukashenko.

Poland, Baltics to withdraw from anti-personnel mine treaty

The defense ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, the EU member states bordering Belarus and Russia, have unanimously recommended that their countries withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel mines.

The ministers reasoned that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its ongoing threats to the Euro-Atlantic community had fundamentally changed the security situation in the region since the ratification of the Ottawa Convention.

“With this decision, we are sending a clear message: our countries are prepared and can use every necessary measure to defend our territory and freedom,” reads a statement published by Poland’s Ministry of National Defense.

Despite withdrawing from the convention, the countries say they would uphold their commitments to international humanitarian law, including protecting civilians during armed conflict.

The decision still requires approval by the countries’ parliaments.

While all EU member states have ratified the treaty, Russia and the United States have not. Neither was Russia a signatory of the convention banning cluster munitions, a weapon widely used in the Russia-Ukraine war. Lithuania voted to withdraw from the convention banning the use of cluster munitions earlier in March.

The move to withdraw from the anti-personnel mine ban treaty signals a shift in the front-line NATO states’ defense policies in the wake of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Both the Kremlin and Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and his military officials have in recent years repeatedly used hostile rhetoric in relation to NATO member-states.

Poland, Baltics to withdraw from anti-personnel mine ban treaty

The defense ministers of the four nations argued that the security situation in the region has “fundamentally deteriorated” and that military threats to NATO member states bordering Russia and Belarus have “significantly increased.”

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

The European Commission is contemplating significant cuts to Ukrainian sugar imports after complaints from EU producers about plummeting sugar prices, Reuters reported on March 20, citing information from three sources.

The EU initially opened its agricultural markets to Ukraine for free to support the country after Russia’s invasion began, but farmer protests in multiple countries have since forced the bloc to scale back.

According to Ukraine’s agriculture ministry, agricultural products accounted for 59% of Ukraine’s total exports in 2024, providing vital support to the war-torn country’s economy.

Reuters reports that EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen told French farm union leaders and industry representatives at the Paris farm show in February that he intends to reduce Ukraine’s sugar imports to levels “well below” current volumes.

Hansen also aims to limit other imports from Ukraine, such as grains, according to two unnamed trade sources cited by Reuters.

European sugar prices fell by more than 30% last year, according to the latest EU data, though white sugar futures have rebounded in the past two months due to weakening production outlooks in major producing countries, including India.

After the EU abolished duties on Ukrainian agricultural products in 2022, Ukrainian sugar imports reached 400,000 tons in the 2022/23 season and over 500,000 tons in 2023/24 — far exceeding the pre-war quota of 20,000 tons.

Following protests from European farmers, the EU reinstated a Ukrainian sugar import quota of 262,650 tons in July 2023.

According to Ukraine’s sugar union Ukrtsukor, cited by Reuters, the EU halted sugar imports from Ukraine after the first part of the quota was exhausted, forcing Ukraine to redirect sugar shipments to other countries, with Turkey becoming the main destination.

The second part of the quota, allowing 109,440 tons of Ukrainian sugar, opened in January, but Ukraine has exported little so far.

Agricultural trade between Ukraine and the EU reached $17 billion in 2024, with the EU remaining Ukraine’s largest trading partner.

Ukraine Business Roundup — McDonald’s and DOGE in Ukraine

The following is the March 18, 2025 edition of our Ukraine Business Roundup weekly newsletter. To get the biggest news in business and tech from Ukraine directly in your inbox, subscribe here. I’ve always wanted an excuse to talk to this newsletter audience about McDonald’s in Ukraine and

The Kyiv IndependentLiliane Bivings

Over the past three years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s cultural figures have shifted from focusing solely on their craft to becoming diplomats, advocating for their culture abroad as the Russian army continues its relentless attempt to destroy it.

At the same time, within Ukraine itself, a resurgence of national identity that began in 2014 has been accelerated by the full-scale war. Ukrainians en masse are reclaiming and reconnecting with their heritage, immersing themselves in a culture that Russia has spent centuries trying to suppress.

Oksana Zabuzhko, one of Ukraine’s most prominent authors, has been at the forefront of the country’s cultural revival since its independence in 1991. Her novel “Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex” is regarded as one of the most significant works of independent Ukraine and her books have been translated into multiple foreign languages.

In an interview with the Kyiv Independent, Zabuzhko discussed why Ukrainians should not feel obligated to respect Russian literature, the rightful place of classic Ukrainian female authors in the global literary canon, the challenge of self-censorship during wartime, and why it’s wrong to share a stage with Russian authors while the war continues.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Kyiv Independent: During the past three years of the full-scale war we’ve seen an increasing amount of global attention directed at Ukraine and Ukrainian culture. But what does the West still not understand about Ukraine?

Oksana Zabuzhko: Well, I wouldn’t place all the blame on the West. A significant share of it does lie there, but I don’t see it as my role to act like some kind of global teacher. Honestly, I hate that role, even though I often find myself having to play it.

There are still many things about Ukraine that Ukrainians themselves have yet to fully understand. We’re still in the process of self-discovery — learning about our own history, and identity. Right now is a particularly interesting time, with this major tectonic shift happening. For the first time since 1945, Europe is being forced to confront its security system on its own. In a way, (U.S. President Donald) Trump and his administration served as a wake-up call for Europe, and suddenly, we’re seeing all these fascinating discussions — both Ukrainian and international — taking place in Kyiv.

For years, Ukraine was seen as an axis between East and West — between Poland and Russia — interpreted through frameworks like Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” or other similar narratives, which, frankly, I consider nonsense. But now, we’re witnessing a shift: Ukraine is becoming an axis that runs North-South. I call this project “Mazepa’s Europe,” after (Ukrainian) Hetman (Ivan) Mazepa, who once envisioned it. His vision ultimately failed in the early 18th century, but it was rooted in an older, historically significant route — the path from the Varangians to the Greeks, which has long played a vital role in both Ukrainian and European history.

This idea of an “Intermarium” — linking the Baltic and Black Seas — is not a hierarchical model where great powers dictate terms to smaller nations. Instead, it’s a democratic Intermarium, where states and nations collaborate as equals, forming temporary alliances and working together on their own terms. It stands in stark contrast to the old model of power, where decisions about smaller nations’ fates were made over their heads by the so-called great powers — like in Yalta (in 1945).

It’s a different approach — very European, I would say. It’s deeply anti-superpower, anti-imperial, and at the same time, unmistakably Ukrainian. After all, we have always existed along this historic route from the Varangians to the Greeks.

Mazepa’s project is something generations of Ukrainians were never taught in school. Our heavily Russified, colonial education system conditioned people to believe that Mazepa was a villain simply because he defied Peter I. (Russian poet Alexander) Pushkin wrote that he was a traitor, and so we were taught to respect Pushkin. But we don’t have to.

This is part of the broader decolonization process — learning about ourselves from a long-term perspective, whether across three centuries or even a millennium. There’s still so much we have yet to share with the world, and many new textbooks are still waiting to be written. It’s an exciting subject.

The Kyiv Independent: Building on this idea, I have to say that I recently read Olha Kobylianska’s short story “Valse mélancolique” (1898) for the first time, and as a foreigner, I was struck by the strong tradition of feminist thought in Ukrainian literature. The line, “We shall live not as mothers or wives, but as women,” has stayed with me ever since. It seems to me that if the world were more familiar with Ukraine’s classic female writers, they would rightfully earn their place in the global literary canon.

Oksana Zabuzhko: Thank you so much — I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you just said. It’s something I’ve been emphasizing for years: we still need to “sell” this idea to the West, to convince Western audiences — however loosely we define them — that without Olha Kobylianska, and even more so Lesia Ukrainka, the landscape of European literature is incomplete.

(Ukrainian writer) Lesia Ukrainka was, in many ways, half a century ahead of her time compared to her Western European female contemporaries. That’s an undeniable truth. What makes Ukrainian culture particularly unique in gender terms? Perhaps it has to do with Ukraine’s long history as a frontier. Here’s a simple way to put it: we never burned our witches. Of course, there were practices like trial by water — drowning women to determine if their souls were pure — but the ancient pagan tradition of strong, wise women endured in Ukraine far longer than in most of Europe. Even in the 20th century, every village still had a healer or “witch” who cured people.

But it’s not just about the survival of pagan traditions. Ukrainian folk culture has always had a powerful female voice. Early 19th-century ethnographers were surprised to discover that two-thirds of Ukrainian folk songs were told from a female perspective — something highly unusual at the time. These songs weren’t just lyrics; they chronicled the entire arc of a woman’s life.

More importantly, Ukrainian women historically had legal rights that were rare in Europe. They could own property and pass it down through the female line — a practice known as “materyzna.” This inheritance, whether money, land, or real estate, was untouchable by husbands and meant to be passed from mother to daughter. Compare that to the impact of the Reformation on women’s rights in Western Europe, and it’s easy to see why Ukraine has such strong female and even feminist voices.

Lesia Ukrainka and other Ukrainian feminists of the time didn’t just advocate for women’s rights; they saw the legal and social restrictions placed on women in European culture as entirely artificial and absurd. Just read her letters — they should be translated into every European language. She was, in a way, the blogger of her time, writing five or six letters a day while traveling. Because of her tuberculosis, she spent much of her life in sanatoriums across Europe. Her letters form an intellectual diary of the Belle Époque, particularly the decade before World War I. And unlike many of her contemporaries, she had a chilling premonition that this beautiful world was on the brink of collapse.

Her perspective is deeply European, unmistakably Ukrainian, and distinctly female — something that is still missing from the broader European literary canon. And it’s absolutely fascinating.

The Kyiv Independent: Would you say that there are any major taboos that exist in Ukrainian literature today?

Oksana Zabuzhko: That’s a difficult question — a really difficult one. I wouldn’t say we’re fully ready to discuss how exactly the war has affected our writing.

In terms of genre, yes, there’s already some discussion. Poetry, for instance, always survives — it’s the art of quick reaction. Essays, too. This is a strong time for poetry and essays. But when it comes to longer forms, like the novel, it’s much more complicated. And speaking of taboos, there’s something I think it’s time to acknowledge.

One of the biggest challenges for a writer in a country at war is that you lose many privileges — but perhaps the most profound loss is the ability to freely criticize your own country. It’s a form of self-censorship, and it’s a real problem for free thought, for imagination, for writing itself. When your country is under attack — when someone is trying to erase it from existence — you start to think in terms of security above all else. Criticizing your country suddenly feels like siding with the enemy, with those who want to destroy it.

And then you realize that being able to openly critique your own country is a privilege. A privilege that disappears in wartime. Because now, you feel mobilized. You feel a duty to strengthen your country, to contribute to its resilience. Anything that exposes its weaknesses can be twisted, weaponized by those who seek to annihilate it.

That, I would say, is what makes me most uncomfortable in my own writing right now — this imposed self-censorship. But that’s war. That’s war.

The Kyiv Independent: Right now in the West, we have a troubling situation where people are eager to humanize Russia, including Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. They seek a kind of normalization. Perhaps you heard of the documentary, “Russians at War,” in which soldiers are portrayed as simple, helpless men. I know Ukrainian authors don’t particularly want to be diplomats; they want to write. But how do we confront this moving forward?

Oksana Zabuzhko: There are, of course, different shades of propaganda, and “Russians at War” — a documentary that many of my Western friends didn’t even recognize as propaganda — was a shocking example of their naivety. A simple question: Do you really think a filmmaker with a camera would be allowed to move freely among Russian soldiers without permission from someone higher up?

When I asked this, the response was always the same: “Oh, really? I didn’t think about that.” This lack of awareness is alarming. The war is at their doorstep too, yet they fail to ask the most basic questions. When they see Russian soldiers being filmed by an allegedly independent filmmaker, the first thing they should ask is: How did this filmmaker get access? Of course, it was approved and paid for from the top. This is all part of Russia’s soft power and propaganda — this push for normalization is a key part of their cultural strategy.

So what can Ukrainians do? Just yesterday, I was discussing this with my agent, who is arranging interviews for me at the Leipzig Book Fair. A journalist asked if I would consider a public dialogue with a Russian writer — someone respected, someone who has written a book against the war, not just a statement or an open letter. And this, too, exposes an important distinction: a writer’s stance on war is not just what they say in interviews. It’s what they put in their books. If a writer has spent years romanticizing the Russian Empire, glorifying (Soviet dictator Joseph) Stalin, or celebrating its imperial past, how can they now claim to be against the war? It’s as absurd as imagining a so-called “anti-fascist” German writer in the 1930s praising (Holocaust architect Heinrich) Himmler’s leadership while condemning (Nazi leader Adolf) Hitler in interviews.

The reality is, I might have a drink with one of these so-called “anti-war” Russian writers in a bar — some of them I’ve known for years — but I won’t share a stage with them in public discussion. And here’s why: in three years of this full-scale war — the largest in Europe since World War II — there has been no collective Russian action against it. Yes, many Russians fled abroad. Yes, some join Ukrainian protests in Berlin or other cities. But have they organized their own protests against Russia’s war? Have they released any collective statement against it? No. Not one.

But when you put them next to us, when you invite them to share the stage with Ukrainians, you legitimize them. You try to place them in the same category of suffering, as if their situation is comparable to ours. And I’m sorry, but it’s not. Not until they take a real stand. So yes, I might have a private conversation with them, but a public discussion? No way. Not until after our victory.

Note from the author:

Hey there, it’s Kate Tsurkan, thanks for reading my latest interview. Oksana Zabuzhko is truly a living legend, one of the greatest figures of contemporary Ukrainian culture, and I was so thrilled to not only finally meet one of my literary heroes but share our conversation with you. Now more than ever it is important to support Ukrainian culture, as Russia seeks to dismantle it. If you like reading this sort of thing, please consider becoming a member of the Kyiv Independent.

Historian Marci Shore: Putin’s obsession with denazification is ‘Freudian projection’

The return of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to political life has raised uncomfortable questions about the future, not only within the U.S. but also on the global stage. This is particularly true for countries like Ukraine, which relies on U.S. aid as it’s locked in a

The Kyiv IndependentKate Tsurkan

With the Polish presidential elections just two months away, two of the country’s leading right-wing candidates have become increasingly antagonistic toward Ukraine and its leadership.

Kyiv can ill afford another hostile head of state among its key partners, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign policy shift has already thrown the pro-Ukraine coalition into disarray.

Rafal Trzaskowski, 53, a progressive mayor of Warsaw backed by the key ruling party, Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform, remains a clear favorite, polling at around 35%. He faces two opponents from the right, both of whom stand a chance to advance to the runoff scheduled for June 1.

The conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), which led the government from 2015 to 2023 and has an ally in incumbent President Andrzej Duda, has tapped relatively unknown historian Karol Nawrocki as its candidate in the upcoming elections.

Polling at 24%, Nawrocki is only about five percentage points ahead of Slawomir Mentzen, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation coalition.

Both men have made headlines by public spats with Ukrainian officials and denounced Kyiv as ungrateful for the support Warsaw has provided. Their popularity potentially signals a growing acceptance of anti-Ukraine sentiments in Poland as Russia’s full-scale war entered its fourth year.

The unresolved historical grievances and constant economic disputes between Kyiv and Warsaw have forced even pro-Ukrainian politicians to tread carefully when it comes to dealings with Ukraine.

‘Talk about an invasion is everywhere’ — How Lithuania is preparing for war with Russia

Throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, repeated and escalating warnings of the potential for a wider war have only raised fears in the Baltic states that they could be next in the crosshairs of the Kremlin. Talk about a potential Russian invasion is “very common at parties, gatherings,…

The Kyiv IndependentYuliia Taradiuk

Liberal Trzaskowski has made it clear that “military support for Ukraine is in Poland’s national interest” as “Ukrainians are fighting for our (Poland’s) freedom."

“But we need a sincere conversation about how we see the future of our relations, a sincere conversation about how Ukrainians should take our sensitivity to historical issues seriously, a sincere conversation about how negotiations on Ukraine’s membership in the EU will be very difficult and, unfortunately, will last for many years,” he then added.

Karol Nawrocki

Nawrocki, 42, is a historian who heads the Institute of National Remembrance, a state agency that studies the crimes committed during World War II and Poland’s communist era.

This professional background seems to have shaped his political views, which are marked by clear anti-communism and distaste for Russian expansionism.

The conservative politician, who is on Russia’s wanted list over the demolition of Soviet memorials in Poland, recently suggested cutting diplomatic ties with Moscow, as “maintaining diplomatic ties with a barbaric state is not good for Poland."

But that doesn’t mean the historian-turned-politician is pro-Ukraine.

While pledging that Polish support for Kyiv will continue if he is elected, Nawrocki signaled he wants to see more gratitude for the assistance provided to both Ukrainian front-line soldiers and refugees.

Nawrocki also declared that Ukraine would not be able to enter NATO or the EU without resolving the issue of the Volyn massacres — a sentiment shared by many Polish politicians across the aisle.

“Today, I do not see Ukraine in either structure, neither in the European Union nor in NATO, until those important civilizational issues are resolved," Nawrocki said in January in reference to the World War II-era massacre of Poles by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in the present-day Volyn Oblast of Ukraine.

The Volyn massacres, which saw tens of thousands of Poles living in Nazi-occupied Volyn killed and thousands of Ukrainians killed in reprisal attacks in 1943-1944, remain the most contentious topic in Polish-Ukrainian relations.

When Tusk hailed a joint breakthrough in efforts to exhume Polish victims in modern-day Ukraine, Nawrocki dismissed the announcement as an "unnecessary trick."

Some of Nawrocki's sharpest comments were aimed personally at President Volodymyr Zelensky.

When nearly all European politicians — including Tusk — rushed to support Zelensky after his heated Oval Office exchange with Trump, Nawrocki, as well as the rest of PiS, backed the U.S. president instead.

Nawrocki even said that the subsequent pause on U.S. military support was the "result of President Zelensky's lack of gratitude and lack of ability to conduct international policy."

This bellicose rhetoric may seem at odds with PiS, whose past government led the charge in providing Ukraine with arms and other support during the full-scale war. But as the elections are coming near and the Ukraine fatigue is setting in, the conservative party may be shifting gears.

"I suspect these are his (Nawrocki's) original views that were muted at the beginning because of the party policy, but now, because they are fighting for the same part of the electorate (as the far-right), he was 'let loose,'" Polish political scientist Pawel Borkowski told the Kyiv Independent.

Nawrocki's main opponent for second place, and thus a potential contender to face Trzaskowski in the runoff, is far-right Mentzen. His Confederation and PiS are likely to battle over rural voters and agrarian workers in the upcoming vote.

Farmers, who fear competition from their Ukrainian counterparts, represent a vocal part of the electorate, as their numerous protests and border blockades have demonstrated.

"Unfortunately, Ukraine has been playing the role of a 'scapegoat' for Polish politicians for quite some time now, a trend that began during the 2023 parliamentary campaign," Yevhen Mahda, executive director of the Institute of World Policy in Kyiv, told the Kyiv Independent.

Surveys reveal that the Polish public has grown more skeptical toward Ukraine and, specifically, Ukrainian refugees when compared to 2022.

According to a February poll commissioned by the Mieroszewski Center, 49% of Poles favored continued military support for Ukraine, yet only 40% supported assistance for refugees.

"The motive that Ukraine is not grateful enough is very present" in Polish society, said Aleksandra Kusztal, a political scientist at the Jan Kochanowski University of Kielce, in comments for the Kyiv Independent.

"Some elements (which) are typical for the Russian propaganda, Russian disinformation, are becoming more and more popular," such as the supposed negative impact of Ukrainians on Poland's social and healthcare system, she added.

50% of Poles oppose Ukraine’s EU, NATO membership until Volyn issue resolved, poll shows

Half of Poles believe Ukraine should not join NATO or the EU until the issue of exhuming Volyn massacre victims is resolved, according to a new poll published on Jan. 30.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

Slawomir Mentzen

A devout libertarian who voiced support for Polish exit from the EU, 38-year-old entrepreneur and tax advisor Mentzen has become one of Poland's most popular far-right politicians.

His apt use of the TikTok social network and public campaigning make it conceivable that he, not Nawrocki, will face Trzaskowski in the second round.

The Confederation, co-chaired by Mentzen, has long been seen as the only relevant force in Polish politics that could be described as openly hostile toward Ukraine.

During the parliamentary elections in 2023, during which the far-right significantly underperformed, Confederation said that Ukraine should pay for all assistance provided by Poland — an argument eerily echoing those coming from today's Washington.

However, emulating far-right populists across Europe, the Confederation has sought to purge its most controversial elements. Two of the most overtly pro-Russian figures, Janusz Korwin-Mikke and antisemite Grzegorz Braun, have been suspended or expelled from the coalition.

Mentzen himself has formally denounced Russian aggression and has largely shaped his Ukraine rhetoric along more transactional lines.

"Yes, it is profitable for us for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, which is why Poles help Ukraine," Mentzen told Polsat. "Not out of sympathy, but because it is simply profitable for us."

"We send weapons to Ukraine, we send money, we send social benefits, we provide medical treatment for free in Poland to Ukrainians who do not even have medical insurance, while Poles have to pay, and in return we receive slander, they insult us and show absolutely no gratitude."

He also said that the West must reach some kind of an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as "there is no force on the horizon that will drive Putin out of Ukraine."

In some cases, Mentzen does not hesitate to push further. One episode that caught the attention of both Polish and Ukrainian media was his public spat with Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi.

After visiting the western Ukrainian city on Feb. 24, Mentzen published a video near the monument to Stepan Bandera, calling the late Ukrainian nationalist a "terrorist" and accused Ukraine of "worshipping criminals."

Bandera, assassinated by the KGB in 1959, led the radical wing of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and organized the assassination of Polish Interior Minister Bronislaw Pieracki.

Sadovyi lashed out against Mentzen, calling him a "pro-Russian politician with a Polish passport." Mentzen then named Lviv, which was part of Poland in the interwar period, a "culturally Polish city," a statement with explosive connotations during the ongoing Russian occupation of one-fifth of Ukraine.

Experts largely agree that this was a public stunt rather than a serious attempt at territorial revisionism, a topic with almost non-existent appeal in Polish politics.

"It was a pure provocation," Kusztal commented, calling Mentzen's campaign nevertheless "very strongly connected with Russian propaganda."

Kusztal presented Mentzen's anti-Ukraine rhetoric as "something quite new in his political biography." The expert suggested it could be a tactic to steal voters from Braun, who announced his own candidacy.

According to Borkowski, Mentzen wanted to strengthen his appeal across the various right-wing groups that make up the Confederation.

"Slawomir Mentzen's conflict with Andrii Sadovyi was staged and election-driven," Mahda concurred. "However, this does not negate the fact that historical policy plays a much greater role in public discourse in Poland than it does in Ukraine."

Who is to gain more from a ceasefire — Russia or Ukraine?

U.S. President Donald Trump said on March 17 that he expects to hold a phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal that Moscow has yet to agree to. Russia has declined to immediately accept the 30-day ceasefire proposal, with the

The Kyiv IndependentOleg Sukhov

Note from the author:

Hi, this is Martin Fornusek.

I hope you enjoyed this article. If you want to help us provide you with more in-depth pieces on Ukraine's struggle against Russian aggression, European politics, and more, please consider joining the Kyiv Independent community.

Thank you very much.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on March 16 drew comparisons between the ongoing anti-government protests in Serbia and Ukraine’s 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution, vowing to “protect and defend” the country from such an event.

His comments followed a massive rally in Belgrade on March 15, culminating months of near-daily protests against corruption and misgovernance, posing the most significant challenge to Vucic’s 13-year rule.

Vucic accused protest organizers of spreading misinformation, including claims that authorities had shut down the internet and used sonic cannons against demonstrators.

“Then they came up with a story about a sonic cannon… but the army does not have such weapons,” Vucic said in a video address published on social media, insisting that what was shown was an anti-drone rifle, not a crowd-control device.

Vucic compared the accusations to those made against ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych during the EuroMaidan protests, which saw over 100 demonstrators killed before Yanukovych fled to Russia in 2014.

“That’s how they started talking here: ‘Vucic, you shot at your own people,'” the Serbian president said. “There were no wounded; nothing happened to anyone, but they have to come up with something."

The protests erupted in November following the deadly collapse of a newly reconstructed train station roof in Novi Sad, which killed 15 people. The reconstruction, financed with Chinese and state funds, was widely viewed as corrupt.

Student-led demonstrations quickly grew into broader anti-government protests, demanding accountability and an end to corruption. Vucic, who maintains close ties with Moscow, has frequently used Kremlin-style rhetoric to discredit protests.

The Serbian opposition, along with student activists, has accused authorities of deploying a sound cannon against demonstrators during a silent vigil for the Novi Sad victims, with footage of people fleeing after a loud blast circulating on social media.

The Serbian president vowed an investigation into what he called “brutal fabrications and lies” and warned that those responsible would be prosecuted.

Rubio asked Hungary not to block EU sanctions, Politico reports

Budapest had initially planned to veto the sanctions renewal, citing U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and the possibility of a shift in U.S. policy toward Russia.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

A court in Georgia has sentenced former President Mikheil Saakashvili to an additional four and a half years in prison on illegal border crossing charges, Georgian TV channel Mtavari reported on March 17.

The latest ruling follows a nine-year sentence issued last week on large-scale state funds embezzlement charges, adding up to almost 12 additional years in prison for Saakashvili.

The border crossing case concerns Saakashvili’s secret return from Ukraine to Georgia on Sept. 29, 2021, despite being wanted by Georgian authorities. He was arrested on Oct. 1, 2021.

Four others were charged in separate proceedings over Saakashvili’s illegal entry and released on bail.

Saakashvili, who served as Georgia’s president from 2004-2007 and to 2008-2013, sought to align the country with the West but lost elections to the Moscow-friendly Georgian Dream party years after a defeat in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

A longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saakashvili has accused billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream, of orchestrating his prosecution on Moscow’s orders.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled last May that there were no grounds to believe that Saakashvili’s criminal proceedings were unfair.

Since Georgia follows the principle of sentence absorption, Saakashvili’s earliest release date would be October 2030, considering his time in custody.

Saakashvili, who holds Ukrainian citizenship and previously served as the governor of Odesa Oblast, has faced worsening health conditions during his custody.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said in February 2023 that the “Georgian government is killing” Saakashvili after images surfaced showing his significant weight loss.

The ruling follows mass protests in Tbilisi over Georgia’s disputed October elections, which saw the Kremlin-friendly Georgian Dream party retain power.

The crisis deepened after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia’s EU integration could be delayed until 2028.

Russia open to civilian observers in Ukraine under possible peace deal

“A peace treaty may provide for unarmed observers in Ukraine, a civilian mission to monitor the implementation of certain aspects of the agreement, or guarantee mechanisms,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

The national food of Ukraine isn’t borscht. It’s sushi. In particular, it’s the Philadelphia roll.

Make this controversial observation to any Ukrainian you meet, and you’ll be met with a knowing chuckle.

When people ask me the most surprising thing I’ve learned in three years of war, they expect that I’ll talk about drone warfare, or the eerie feeling of an air raid shelter during a missile attack.

But when I first came to Ukraine, the thing that stuck out to me the most was the fact that you could find a sushi restaurant in pretty much every corner of the country.

In large cities and small villages – even close to the frontlines! – you can find the Japanese dish, with a Ukrainian twist.

Subscribe now

Meet Blade, who goes by that callsign while working as a Ukrainian drone pilot. At his request, we’re withholding his real name for security purposes.

Blade recounts how one of his sushi cravings unfurled during a brief moment of calm while stationed in the south of Ukraine during the first year of the country’s war with Russia.

"The enemy was very close,” he said.

The drone pilot and his team were just beyond the front lines, regrouping in the war-ravaged village of Bashtanka.

At the time, only a few thousand civilians remained, but during a lull, Blade walked into a cafe in search of sustenance and matter of factly asked, “What is on the sushi menu?"

Moments later, he was snacking on unagi – Japanese eel.

The cultural moment he shared during an interview that happened to take place in another sushi restaurant—this time in Kramatorsk, itself a frontline city that is a major logistics hub for fighting in east Ukraine.

Almost everywhere in Ukraine, sushi rolls are part of the diet of hungry troops. In fact, if you walk into a restaurant in Ukraine at random, there’s a very good chance it will serve sushi.

Google Maps backs this up. Zero in on Kyiv or almost any part of Ukraine and search for sushi, and you’ll likely be able to find a cafe or restaurant to satiate your fix.

Over the last twenty years, as the fight for an independent and democratic Ukraine has progressed, first through deadly protests, and now the ongoing war against Russian oppression, sushi has become a staple food.

“Sushi was probably one of the first properly foreign dishes that came to Ukraine [after the restoration of independence],” said Yaroslav Druziuk, the former editor-in-chief of The Village Ukraine, a Ukrainian culture and politics publication. “[At that time] sushi is the easiest way to feel like you're eating something exotic and fascinating… Want to impress your girlfriend? Set up a date in a sushi restaurant.”

The rise in sushi’s popularity is intertwined with a Ukrainian trend towards eating what America and the rest of the West eats—a cosmopolitan way of looking at the world absent of Russian influence.

According to Google search trends, the most sought after takeaway food in Ukraine is sushi. In Russia, it is kebab.

Olha Nasonova, a restaurant consultant and co-founder of the National Restaurant Association of Ukraine, says that cold appetizers are “very popular” in Ukraine—sliced vegetables, sliced sausage, mushrooms — “and in some way, sushi replaced these cold appetizers because many people, even now, put sushi on the table instead. They can eat sushi first, then have a hot dish, and then dessert. And basically, this has become…a common practice for many families.”

I’ve asked countless Ukrainians why sushi is so popular here. It’s so entrenched at this point that most don’t give it any thought. “It’s just delicious!” is the most common reply.

But there are also subtle ways in which Ukrainian sushi history is intertwined with its politics.

Sushiya, now a common Ukrainian sushi chain, established its first store in 2006. Several years later, it opened a branch overlooking Kyiv’s Independence Square, or Maidan. The square is integral to the Ukrainian story.

In 2014, this is where protesters demanded the resignation of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and closer integration with the European Union. No doubt during frigid winter days, some pro-democracy protesters huddled in the Sushiya to stay warm and in the process ordered a few rolls. Today, Sushiya has 21 restaurants in five cities across Ukraine.

Following the successful Maidan Revolution, one way Ukrainian chefs and customers expressed themselves was freeing their palates of rigid culinary bonds.

“Ukrainian [sushi restaurants], especially the places that opened up after 2014, they had more freedom to make experiments,” Druziuk said.

In taste and texture, most sushi is about as far from traditional Ukrainian food as you can get. Ukrainian cuisine typically emphasizes foods like varenyky and borscht and buckwheat—and there’s often a hefty serving of smetana, a sort of sour cream, but as happens in nearly every cultural food mashup in societies around the world, Ukrainians added a personal twist on their sushi-eating habits.

"In post-Soviet Union countries, it was quite typical to have a mixture of milk and fish products, fish with mayonnaise in a salad, stuff like that," says Ukrainian chef Serhii Khehai, who manages a high-end Kyiv sushi counter called Shima.

And these combinations have found their way into Ukrainian sushi menus. “I’ve personally tried various adaptations of sushi, like sushi with mashed potatoes and herring, or rolls with beetroot and salmon, for example,” says Nasonova.

The experimentation led itself naturally to sushi paired with cream cheese, or mayonnaise, or other types of cream sauces – a departure from the subtle flavors of traditional Japanese cuisine.

The country’s favorite type of sushi, by far, is the Philadelphia Roll – the sushi characterized by cream cheese paired with raw or cooked fish.

Sushiya has no less than 34 versions of the Philadelphia Roll on its menu, such as the 'Philadelphia Grilled Greens with Salmon Well Done,' which features salmon stewed in soy sauce, cream cheese,and cheddar cheese, topped with some onion crumble; or a version with mussels, tomato, crab mix, avocado, shaved tuna and cream cheese.

“A Japanese person who eats sushi as an everyday food would be surprised by the variety of our menu… we’re not afraid to surprise, adding something of our own,” said Artem Mykhailenko, a Sushiya employee at the Independence Square location.

Getting fresh raw fish into the country has been a challenge in a period of wartime, when all flights are grounded. Ukraine’s only nearby major body of water is the Black Sea, where ongoing military operations are underway.

But restaurateurs have found a way to meet demand, despite the regular power outages, drone attacks, and missile strikes across the country.

Over time, Khehai has been able to source salmon from Scotland, and other fish from countries like Spain, using road transport to get it across the border from Poland into Ukraine.

He orders his fish to arrive by Tuesday evening—chilled, never frozen. The sushi counter's freshest fish is served on Wednesday.

“It is quite interesting because it is the only available exotic food at the moment. One could say that people in Ukraine are getting poorer, and they really want something unusual, something exotic, something that differs from their usual diet,” said Nasonova. “And sushi has taken on this role. Sushi is not just food, it is a celebration.”

Tim Mak x Felicity Spector talk about Ukrainian food!

NEWS OF THE DAY

Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

G7 PRESSURES RUSSIA WITH SANCTIONS TO FORCE CEASEFIRE: The US and other G7 countries have warned Russia that they will expand sanctions and use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine if Moscow does not agree to a ceasefire, The Financial Times reported. Sanctions may include oil price caps. Additionally, Marco Rubio made it clear that territorial concessions should be made not only by Kyiv but also by Moscow.

This week, after a meeting of American and Ukrainian negotiating teams, Kyiv proposed signing a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire that would apply on land, in the air, and at sea. However, Russia signaled its unwillingness to do this immediately.

U.S. MAY IMPOSE RESTRICTIONS ON RUSSIAN ENTRY: The United States is preparing new restrictions on the entry of citizens from 43 countries, including Russians and Belarusians, according to The New York Times. The proposal includes three levels of restrictions: red, orange, and green.

Russia and Belarus are in the orange category, which involves strict restrictions on visa issuance, though it does not mean a suspension. Wealthy businessmen from Belarus and Russia may still be allowed to enter the United States, but immigrant and tourist visas for citizens of these countries could be blocked. Additionally, citizens from these countries must undergo a personal interview to obtain a visa.

UKRAINE IS ALMOST OUT OF MISSILES FOR AIR DEFENSE: Kyiv has urgently requested that Italy and France provide additional missiles for its Samp-T air defense batteries, as its available stockpile is nearly depleted, according to Corriere della Sera. Ukraine has reportedly been asking the governments for 50 missiles for several weeks, but they have been slow to respond. Italy has already exhausted its stockpile, leaving only an untouchable reserve.

Samp-T systems have not always performed well during massive Russian attacks, unlike the American Patriot systems. However, due to the U.S.'s unstable arms supplies, Kyiv seeks to bolster its defense capabilities by any means necessary.

UKRAINIAN CHILDREN SEARCH THREATENED DUE TO MUSK: Elon Musk's DOGE has stopped funding a Yale University team that was helping to track down children deported to Russia, The Telegraph reported. They were gathering information from open sources about abducted children and passing it on to Ukraine. In cooperation with the Bring Kids Back UA campaign, launched by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the team found hundreds of Ukrainian children.

CAT OF CONFLICT

Today we have a cat of conflict who was accompanying a woman to raise money for the animal shelter near a metro station. It was a cold evening, resembling the last days of winter, but the cat was resting peacefully, wrapped in the fabric and warmed by the woman’s arms.

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Mariana

Russia proposed building a drone factory in Belarus with an annual capacity of 100,000 units.

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko appoints new government ahead of his seventh “inauguration.”

Belarus cracks down on the unemployed amid workforce shortages.

UN experts urge Belarus to end the incommunicado detention of political prisoner Siarhei Tsikhanouski, after two years of him being hidden from the public eye.

Belarus drops out of the top 20 global arms exporters, SIPRI report finds.

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Russia proposes to build drone factory in Belarus

Russia has proposed to build a drone factory in Belarus capable of producing 100,000 drones every year, the press office of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko reported on March 6.

Deputy Head of the Russia Presidential Administration Maxim Oreshkin made the offer during a meeting with Lukashenko at a military exhibition in Minsk, the press office said. The drones will reportedly be built using Russian licenses.

“It’s very important that Belarus has its own (drone) production facilities, which would strengthen both its economy and national security,” Oreshkin said.

“We’re ready to build the plant. We guarantee: you wouldn’t be able to build it in Russia the way you could build it here,“ Lukashenko said in response.

The announcement does not specify whether the plant will produce military drones. Yury Kozarenko, a member of the Russian delegation, said that drone production in Belarus could contribute billions to Belarus’s GDP, as drones are also used in agriculture, logistics, and education.

A staunch Kremlin ally, Lukashenko has repeatedly claimed that Belarus needs to prepare for war and adapt to modern warfare. The Belarusian Defense Ministry reported on Nov. 15, 2024, that it was developing military drones domestically. By the end of 2025, the Belarusian military is expected to have “a wide range of combat drones,” including a 30-kilometer range “Chekan-V” and “Peacemaker” with a reported 10 kilogram warhead and a 100 kilometer range, according to the Head of Application and Development of the Unmanned Aerial Systems department of the Belarusian army, Mikhail Bransky.

Currently, Russia uses around 100 to 200 Iranian-developed Shahed-type kamikaze drones in its daily attacks on Ukraine, Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), said on March 3. Russia plans to increase the number of drones and sites from which drones will be launched, he added.

Since July 2024, Russian drones have crossed into Belarusian airspace with increasing frequency. Some of them have crashed in the vicinity of residential areas, although so far without causing casualties.

Minsk has never publicly objected to Moscow over these incursions, and local authorities tend to conceal incidents and provide no comment.

Lukashenko appoints government before official ‘inauguration’

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, not yet officially inaugurated as president following the Jan. 26 sham presidential elections, has appointed a new government, naming Alexander Turchin as the country’s new prime minister.

Lukashenko began his seventh consecutive term as president amid widespread repressions and in an atmosphere of fear, human rights activists report. The Belarusian autocrat maintained his grip on power by brutally suppressing nationwide protests that engulfed the country following fraudulent 2020 presidential elections.

Turchin, the new prime minister, was appointed on March 10, after previously serving as head of the Minsk regional executive committee. He is under EU, U.K., Swiss and Norwegian sanctions over the suppression of mass protests in 2020.

Following the appointment, Turchin told reporters that Belarus would not see any “significant course correction,” adding that his approach would be one of “evolution without revolutions.”

His predecessor, Raman Halouchanka, was transferred to the position of head of the Belarusian National Bank. While announcing the appointment, Lukashenko called for the bank and the government to “find common ground” in terms of financing the economy.

Analysts say the appointment of Halouchanka will weaken the bank’s monetary policy, as the former prime minister lacks a background in finance.

Lukashenko has previously ordered government interventions in the economy, and was forced to subsidize struggling state-owned enterprises.

Inflation risks are mounting, according to Beroc, the country’s leading independent economic think tank. In 2024, inflation was reined in to 5.2% with the help of heavy government regulation of consumer goods pricing. If the restrictions were to be relaxed, inflation would accelerate to 6-8%, experts believe.

Lukashenko presented the official appointments as the advent of a “new generation” in Belarusian leadership. However, the government consists largely of the same ministers, except for Uladzimir Karanik, formerly the chairman of one of the Regional Executive Committees, who was appointed deputy prime minister, and Kiryl Zalesky, the former head of the High-Tech Park information technology development initiative, who became minister of informatization.

Political analysts do not foresee any real changes, saying that in general, the appointments were an “old system masquerading as new.”

Belarus cracks down on unemployed amid labor shortages

Belarusian authorities are attempting to remedy the country’s current labor shortages by targeting the unemployed with a special tax, independent Belarusian media have reported.

Belarus in 2015 adopted a Soviet-style decree requiring working-age citizens without formal employment or income to pay an annual fee of about $200. Dubbed “the tax on parasitism,” the measure sparked mass protests and was suspended in 2017. It came into effect again three years later, replacing the direct tax with the obligation to pay the full cost of household utilities, which are typically subsidized by the government. Currently, the rate is five times higher for those considered “parasites.”

In February 2025, Belarus’s Interior Minister Ivan Kubarkov announced raids against “deadbeats” — the working-age citizens who have not been officially employed for a long time, have no declared income, and don’t pay taxes. The announcement followed Lukashenko’s claim on Jan. 21 that it was necessary to bring more unemployed people back into the labor market.

Throughout the first weeks of March, Belarusians in Minsk were summoned en masse to the employment administration and questioned regarding their sources of income. The exiled Belarusian news outlet Nasha Niva reported that summons were delivered even to those who had left the country decades ago.

Belarus is grappling with a serious labor shortages: the state jobs database currently lists 188,700 vacant postings, a significant amount for a nation of 9.5 million with an estimated 4-4.5 million workforce. Healthcare alone faces a shortfall of 10,000 workers. Up to 57% of employers in Belarus reported experiencing a shortages of staff, according to the independent research center rabota.by. The Eurasian Development Bank foresees further wage increases in 2025, fueled by competition over scarce labor.

The natural aging of the population in Belarus is being exacerbated by the mass emigration of the most economically and politically active population, the economic think tank Beroc reports. By various accounts, between 300,000 and 500,000 Belarusians have left the country since 2020, after that year’s fraudulent elections triggered massive protests and a subsequent crackdown on public protests.

At the same time, former political prisoners are not being offered jobs, and workers are being dismissed for supporting an opposition candidate in 2020. On March 3, Lukashenko reiterated his demand that people who participated in protests should not be hired, slamming them as “the enemies of the state.”

UN experts demand to end incommunicado regime on 2nd anniversary of Tsikhanouski’s ‘enforced disappearance’

Sixteen United Nations human rights experts issued a statement on March 7 demanding that the Belarusian authorities disclose the fate and whereabouts of former presidential candidate and political prisoner Siarhei Tsikhanouski.

The jailed activist, who sought to challenge Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential elections, has been held incommunicado for the past two years.

Among Belarus’s 1,200 political prisoners, nine leaders of the 2020 pro-democracy movement remain fully isolated from the outside world in what’s known as an incommunicado regime. The human rights community considers the regime to be a form of enforced disappearance that amounts to torture.

The UN experts, including Chair-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances Gabriella Citroni, Special Rapporteur on Belarus Nils Muižnieks, along with other experts, urged Belarus to enable contact to be restored with Tsikhanouski and other opposition leaders, such as Mikalai Statkevich, Viktar Babaryka, Maria Kalesnikava and Maksim Znak.

“The enforced disappearance of Mr. Tsikhanouski and others is a blatant violation of international law,” the experts said.

“These actions seek to silence political opposition and instill fear.”

While acknowledging that there had been releases of political prisoners in Belarus recently, the experts noted that these had been selective and came with conditions to cooperate with law enforcement and propaganda.

Blogger and entrepreneur Siarhei Tsikhanouski is serving a nineteen-and-a-half year term in prison. Arrested in May 2020, two months before the election, he was charged with obstructing the public’s electoral rights, organizing riots, and inciting hatred.

While in prison he was given an additional 18-month sentence for allegedly disobeying the penal colony administration. His lawyers and family have not received any information about him since March 2023.

Belarus drops out of top 20 global arms exporters, SIPRI report finds

Belarus has dropped out of the world’s top-20 arms exporters, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published on March 10.

Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus quickly became a major arms exporter, ranking 11th globally. Between 1999 and 2006, the country reportedly earned an estimated $1 billion by selling off the arsenal it inherited from the collapsed empire, prompting the U.S. Congress to pass a motion, which required annual reporting on Belarusian arms exports.

Belarus had remained in the 20th position since 2019 despite a 37% decline in exports. Meanwhile, its arms imports, coming exclusively from Russia, grew by a third. In recent years, Serbia, Vietnam, and Uganda have been the top buyers of Belarusian weapons.

Belarusian arms deals have drawn scrutiny, with multiple media investigations conducted into Lukashenko’s close circle of businessmen, Alexander Zingman and Oleg Vodchits, for facilitating arms sales to African countries.

On March 7, the head of the military government of Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, was in Minsk to discuss arms supplies, the exiled Myanmar Mizzima News Media reported.

Belarus backed Russia in its aggression against Ukraine but has abstained from sending its troops to the battlefield. Experts attribute Lukashenko’s reluctance to an overwhelming anti-war consensus domestically, which might cause massive unrest in Belarus while not providing much help to Russia on the front line.

Belarus will not formally merge with Russia in the near future, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko said on March 14 while addressing the Russian Federation Council.

“If we are going to burst through this open door, we will ruin everything we have done. It is necessary to go calmly, step by step,” Lukashenko said.

In early January, independent Russian media Meduza reported, citing sources close to the Kremlin, that Putin may revisit plans to formally absorb Belarus once the war against Ukraine is resolved.

Despite his claim of maintaining relations with a range og global actors including China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the EU, Lukashenko said that Minsk will “always side with Moscow."

“It can’t be otherwise. Belarus will never leave Russia alone, just as Russia will never leave Belarus,” he added, highlighting what he described as “open fraternal relations” between the two countries.

Lukashenko’s visit to Russia marks his first trip since securing a seventh presidential term in an election widely denounced as a sham. On March 13, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Following their talks, Lukashenko and Putin signed a joint statement pledging to expand bilateral trade, economic, and investment cooperation.

Belarus has been largely cut off from the West following Lukashenko's violent crackdown on mass protests in 2020 against fraudulent election results.

Since then, his regime has further curtailed political freedoms and deepened its alignment with Moscow, providing logistical and military support for Russia's war against Ukraine.

Even before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin reportedly had devised a plan for the "creeping annexation" of Belarus by 2030.

The plan outlined steps for "harmonizing" Russian and Belarusian laws, "coordinated foreign and defense policy," and economic integration based on Russian interests.

President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed on Feb. 14 that Russia is once again building up troops in Belarus, possibly in preparation for large-scale operations against NATO countries.

Putin sent ‘additional signals’ to Trump on ceasefire proposal, Kremlin says

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin late in the evening on March 13, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The Kyiv IndependentTim Zadorozhnyy

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on March 13 that the Ukrainian government failed to prevent and adequately investigate deadly clashes between the EuroMaidan supporters and opponents in Odesa in May 2014.

The ruling concerns seven applications filed by 28 individuals — 25 relatives of the victims and three survivors — between 2016 and 2018.

Forty-eight people died in the violence that erupted between the two camps on May 2, 2014. A group of pro-Russian activists attacked a pro-EuroMaidan rally but retreated to the Trade Unions House after the ensuing violence.

Forty-two of the EuroMaidan opponents died after the building caught fire as the two groups began throwing petrol bombs. Two pro-Ukrainian activists were also killed after suffering gunshot wounds.

The ruling noted “authorities’ failure to do everything that could reasonably be expected of them to prevent the violence in Odesa on 2 May 2014, to stop that violence after its outbreak, to ensure timely rescue measures for people trapped in the fire, and to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events."

The ECHR noted that Russian propaganda helped to instigate the clashes but acknowledged the applicants' complaints that Ukraine failed to prevent the violence and adequately investigate it. The Ukrainian state was ordered to pay out compensations.

The plaintiffs included relatives of victims from both camps, all of whom accused the Ukrainian state of inaction.

Russian propaganda has heavily employed the violent episode in Odesa to vilify the EuroMaidan Revolution and falsely paint the movement as pro-Nazi and extremist.

The EuroMaidan Revolution began in November 2013 when people gathered at Maidan Nezalezhnosti, Kyiv’s central square, to protest pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the long-awaited Association Agreement with the European Union.

Law enforcement officers, namely Berkut riot police, used violence to suppress the protests, including lethal force. More than 100 people were killed during the revolution, which culminated in Yanukovych fleeing to Russia.

“The Court noted that distortion of the events in Odesa had eventually become a tool of Russian propaganda in respect of the war waged by the Russian Federation against Ukraine since February 2022,” the ECHR’s ruling said.

“Enhanced transparency in the related investigative work by the Ukrainian authorities might have helped to prevent or counteract that propaganda effectively."

The court noted that the investigation should have been “carried out by an organ entirely independent from the police.” At the same time, the ECHR dismissed allegations that the authorities were not impartial when investigating the deaths of EuroMaidan opponents and supporters.

EuroMaidan Revolution

The EuroMaidan Revolution is often credited with being the single most consequential event in Ukraine’s modern history. After pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych took power in 2010, the political and business landscape in Ukraine was gradually deteriorating. In November 2013, Yanukovych refuse…

The Kyiv IndependentAlisa Sobolieva

On March 7, tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Slovakia for the third time this year to protest the pro-Russian policies of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government. They voiced concerns that Slovakia is drifting away from the European Union and its transatlantic allies.

Their fears are well-founded. Since autumn 2023, a coalition of nationalist, EU-skeptic, and pro-Russian parties has held power in Bratislava. While Fico’s left-wing Smer party pushes pro-Russian rhetoric, the Slovak National Party (SNS) promotes a “pan-Slavic brotherhood” with Moscow. The result is the same: under Fico, Slovakia is moving in a direction similar to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

Fico’s government has demonstrated a clear alignment with Moscow. In September 2024, he falsely claimed that Nazi troops were fighting in Ukraine. He was also the first prime minister of an EU member state to grant an interview to the Russian state television channel Rossiya 1.

In October 2024, Ľuboš Blaha, a European Parliament member of Fico’s Smer, traveled to Moscow to “apologize to the Russians for EU sanctions,” provocatively stating, “fascism and war come from the West, while freedom and peace come from the East.”

Fico met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in December 2024, and he had already accepted Putin’s invitation to travel to Moscow in May 2025. In January 2025, a delegation from SNS also visited Moscow, where party chairman Andrej Danko called Putin “a very reasonable and pragmatic leader.”

Concerned about the government’s pro-Russian stance, the liberal opposition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) proposed enshrining Slovakia’s EU membership in the constitution. The response from Fico’s camp was both surprising and alarming: Tibor Gašpar, a former police chief indicted for criminal activity and now a Smer politician, suggested that Slovakia should consider leaving the EU if its rules were to change. Even President Peter Pellegrini, from the coalition partner Hlas, distanced himself from Gašpar’s remarks.

While a Slovak exit from the EU may still seem unlikely, many citizens are deeply unsettled by the government’s direction. This frustration has fueled mass protests, where demonstrators wave Ukrainian flags and rally under the slogan “Peace for Ukraine.”

Fico, however, has responded with conspiracy theories. When his government faced a no-confidence vote in January 2025 — after losing several MPs and potentially its parliamentary majority — he called for a closed session, claiming Slovakia’s intelligence service (led by the son of Tibor Gašpar) had warned him of an attempted coup.

According to Fico, NGOs active in Ukraine and Georgia were plotting to overthrow him — a claim with no evidence, but one that echoed the rhetoric of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Around the same time, Orbán himself visited Bratislava, further strengthening ties between the two leaders. In the end, Fico managed to block the no-confidence vote, despite his government’s fragile majority.

Fico’s Orbán-like approach extends beyond foreign policy into domestic affairs. Ironically, Fico — who pursued anti-Hungarian minority policies in his first term (2006–2010) — has now become a close ally of Orbán. Even Slovakia’s Hungarian minority party aligns with Fico’s anti-Ukrainian, pro-Russian stance.

Like Orbán, Fico has worked to weaken democratic checks and balances — amending criminal law in his interests, restructuring public media to silence critical journalists, and allowing SNS’s nationalist culture minister to wage a political war against artists (theater and museum directors have been dismissed and replaced with loyalists).

Despite these troubling developments, Slovakia under Fico remains freer and more pluralistic than Orbán’s Hungary. The key difference is stability: Orbán has ruled since 2010 with a strong parliamentary majority, whereas Fico’s coalition is fragile and divided. Some MPs from his smaller coalition partners, SNS and Hlas, have already left the government, though they have not yet voted against him.

Fico’s pro-Russian stance has so far been more of a rhetorical tool for domestic politics. Unlike Orbán, he ultimately did not block the EU’s decision on Ukraine in early March, as he hopes the European Union will secure gas supplies for Slovakia.

Fico’s pragmatism can also be explained by the fact that a fully pro-Russian foreign policy and a boycott strategy at the European level would not even be entirely supported within his own coalition — particularly by the Hlas party of President Peter Pellegrini. At the same time, the issue of Ukraine — again in contrast to Hungary — is a key mobilising force for the Slovak opposition. While the Hungarian opposition avoids open and direct confrontation with Orbán on this matter out of opportunism, tens of thousands of people take to the streets in Slovakia to demonstrate in support of Ukraine and against Fico’s pro-Russian policies.

Political instability and mounting public resistance continue to pressure Fico. On the streets of Slovak cities, the Ukrainian flag has become a symbol of pro-European commitment for many. They are not “foreign agents,” as Fico claims, but decent citizens of Slovakia who want to avoid the Orbánization of their country.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

US set to abandon partners again as history repeats in Ukraine

Paris in January 1973. Doha in February 2000. Saudi Arabia in February 2025 — all peacemaking summits with the same aroma and feel. But there are key differences before we assume the stage is simply being set for another American episode of “cut and run.” After years of promising never to

The Kyiv IndependentEerik Kross

Former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been sentenced to an additional nine years in prison for an alleged large-scale embezzlement of state funds, the Tbilisi City Court ruled, as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Georgian service reported on March 12.

Judge Badri Kochlamazashvili found Saakashvili guilty of misappropriating 9 million lari (about $5.4 million at the time) from the state budget between May 2009 and February 2013 for personal expenses, including luxury hotels, cosmetic procedures, and designer clothing.

Teimuraz Janashia, former head of the Special Guard Service, was also convicted in the case and fined 300,000 Georgian lari ($108,000) for abuse of office. Both men denied the charges, calling the trial politically motivated.

Saakashvili, Georgia’s president between 2004-2007 and 2008-2013, sought to take his country on a pro-Western path but lost elections to the Moscow-friendly Georgian Dream party a few years after the defeat in the Russia-Georgia war in 2008.

The politician was detained upon returning to Georgia in 2021 and is currently serving six years in prison on charges of ordering the beating of opposition lawmaker Valery Gelashvili in 2005. He was also given a three-year sentence for abuse of power charges for pardoning four police officers convicted of murder in 2008.

The former president, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has accused oligrach Bidzina Ivanishvili, the honorary chairman of the Georgian Dream party, of orchestrating his prosecution on Moscow’s orders.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on May 23 that there were no grounds to believe that Saakashvili’s criminal proceedings were unfair.

In February 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Georgian government was “killing” Saakashvili after photos surfaced showing his deteriorating health and significant weight loss. Saakashvili holds Ukrainian citizenship and served as the governor of Odesa Oblast between 2015 and 2016.

The ruling follows mass protests in Tbilisi over the disputed October election results, which saw the Kremlin-friendly Georgian Dream party retain power.

Since the election, a number of Western countries have imposed sanctions on Georgia over the perceived democratic backsliding.

The political crisis deepened after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that Georgia’s EU integration could be delayed until 2028.

Despite Russian-backed Georgescu barred from presidential race, Romania’s far-right still aim to win

Protests erupted in downtown Bucharest following the Central Electoral Bureau’s decision to ban Russian-backed far-right politician Calin Georgescu from running in the upcoming re-run presidential elections. Georgescu, who is openly supported by the Russian and the U.S. administrations, said this w…

The Kyiv IndependentPaula Erizanu

Protests erupted in downtown Bucharest following the Central Electoral Bureau’s decision to ban Russian-backed far-right politician Calin Georgescu from running in the upcoming re-run presidential elections.

Georgescu, who is openly supported by the Russian and the U.S. administrations, said this was a “direct hit against democracy."

Following the announcement on March 9, Georgescu’s supporters began setting the streets of Bucharest on fire and throwing bottles, stones, and firecrackers at the police. Riot police used tear gas in response.

In November 2024, the relatively unknown Georgescu surprisingly won the first round of the vote. The result was promptly annulled, citing foreign interference in the election process. In connection to the case, Romania expelled the Russian military attache and his deputy for breaching diplomatic rules of conduct.

Now, the Central Electoral Bureau cited technical irregularities in Georgescu’s application, as well as the Constitutional Court’s decisions to cancel the previous round of voting and ban another Russian-backed candidate, Diana Sosoaca.

Georgescu said he would appeal, and the Constitutional Court will have the final say on his expulsion from the race.

“The decision was inevitable for the health of democracy, but this democracy will need deep repairs after elections in May,” journalist Magda Gradinaru told Kyiv Independent.

“Romania’s secret services failed in the final goal of preventing this crisis and they will need to be reformed (as well),” she added.

“It is to be seen who will capitalize on Georgescu’s electoral ban and to what extent social tensions can morph into violent social movements,” said Gradinaru.

“This was a short-term solution, but the extremist populist platform remains, as does Russian pressure, social resentment, and tension. So this may just be the beginning of a crisis that Romania will have to manage in a complicated geopolitical context,” she added.

‘We’re ready’ — Ukraine heads into US peace talks with everything at stake

Kyiv officials will meet their Washington counterparts in Jeddah on March 11 for talks which will impact the future of diplomatic relations between the two countries and likely the future of the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian side hopes the meeting would help mend ties with the White House and

The Kyiv IndependentChris York

Far-right uprising

The leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party, George Simion, said on Sunday evening that “those who organized the ‘coup’ should be skinned alive in the public square."

He called on people to take part in protests in support of Georgescu.

On Monday morning, Simion claimed his words were a “metaphor,” and he asked supporters to protest peacefully. Georgescu appeared publicly, holding hands with Simion and Anamaria Gavrila, the leader of another Romanian far-right project, Party of Young People (POT).

Georgescu was expelled from AUR in 2022 after being briefly investigated for declarations in support of Romania’s World War II fascist leaders. Now, Georgescu relies on AUR and POT for support.

In the December parliamentary elections, AUR secured second place with 18% of the vote, while POT gained 6.5%. Both remained in opposition.

“If Simion runs for president, some of the tension created by Georgescu’s ban will be eliminated,” analyst Oana Popescu Zamfir told Kyiv Independent.

According to her, Simion’s recent radical statements are meant to incentivize Georgescu’s supporters to vote for him. “It’s important for Georgescu to explicitly support Simion,” Popescu Zamfir said.

Other candidates Georgescu’s electorate may vote for, according to Popescu Zamfir, include former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, former acting President Crin Antonescu, or businessman and politician Gigi Becali.

“If Simion does not run, whoever wins the election will have less legitimacy,” Popescu Zamfir said.

Russian attempt to dismantle institutions

The ongoing political crisis began last year with Russian meddling in Romania’s elections and the subsequent rise of far-right politicians and their parties.

While not making it into the top five according to most opinion polls, Georgescu suddenly took first place following a two-week viral TikTok campaign that involved working with local influencers. The campaign was artificially boosted, with over 66,000 fake TikTok accounts later banned by the platform.

Georgescu has been actively promoting conspiracy theories and has been vocally supporting Russia. He called Ukraine a “fictional state” and claimed that the eventual partition of its territories is “inevitable” in an interview published on Jan. 29.

The media also found evidence of Georgescu’s links to paramilitary and fascist leaders, such as mercenary Horatiu Potra, who manages a group of soldiers in Congo.

On Dec. 8, when the presidential runoff was scheduled to take place, Potra and 20 other people were detained by the police as they were driving to Bucharest carrying weapons and cash.

On Feb. 26, the Romanian Prosecutor General’s Office charged Georgescu with “incitement to actions against the constitutional order” and other crimes in a six-count indictment. The charges also included lying about campaign funding and initiating a fascist organization.

According to law enforcement, Georgescu used over 1 million euros of undeclared funds and has been involved in neo-legionarism, a Romanian neo-fascist movement that draws its ideology from the country’s Iron Guard militant group active in the run-up to World War II.

Georgescu denied any wrongdoing.

On the same day, the Romanian police found dozens of guns, grenades, 25 kilograms of gold, $3.3 million, and 700,000 Romanian Leu ($152,500) in cash in the homes of Potra and his associates.

On March 5, Russian military attache Victor Makovskiy and his deputy, Evgeny Ignatiev, were expelled from Romania. The move was connected to Georgescu’s campaign.

The next day, six people were arrested for allegedly being part of a military organization attempting to overthrow the government with help from Russia.

“These six people are just the visible tip (of the iceberg),” analyst Armand Gosu told Kyiv Independent. “This is the first time Romania openly accuses the Russian Federation of a plot against its state sovereignty."

“They (Russians) can wait years, even decades, that’s why it’s necessary for the Romanian state to neutralize this (entire) network,” Gosu said.

According to Popescu Zamfir, “if eliminating the entire network is not possible, at least beheading these groups would avoid further existential threats."

The rise in disinformation and buildup of far-right groups was missed by the government agency set to protect the country from malicious activity from abroad — its intelligence.

Independent journalist Victor Ilie from the local investigative project Snoop published a series of articles showing how Kremlin-linked creative agencies based in London pump millions of euros to create and promote conspiracy and far-right content in the Romanian digital space.

“While Romanians have been mistrustful of Russia, what confuses a part of the Romanian public now is that the U.S., which was considered the country’s main partner, embraced the Russians, and that Georgescu claims that he is not pro-Russian, but pro-American, pro-Trump,” Gosu said.

“It’s very hard to explain that the Americans are not what they once were,” he added. “Now Romania is seen as the EU’s weak link that can easily be broken."

Investigation: We tried to buy American chips as a Russian defense manufacturer — and it worked

Despite bans put in place by the U.S. and Europe on the supply of electronic components to Russia, dozens of Russian microelectronics suppliers continue to obtain and resell imported chips to Russian arms manufacturers successfully. Without these Western chips, Russia would not be able to produce k…

The Kyiv IndependentAlisa Yurchenko

A glimmer of hope

However, swift action against Georgescu and his associates showed that Romanian authorities were still eager to fight back.

The crisis had also catapulted some new faces that are now set to challenge the far-right at the ballot, among them acting President Ilie Bolojan and Bucharest Mayor Nicusor Dan, who are gaining popularity.

“Acting President Ilie Bolojan has done some damage control — organizing press conferences, which journalists missed, meeting up European leaders in a period when Romania seemed to be quarantined, transmitting key messages — has given the feeling that there is a clear political direction for the country and it has been a good move,” said Gosu.

"(Bolojan and Dan) can re-legitimize institutions and the democratic process,” said Gradinaru.