Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent annual address on the state of his country was so ostentatiously threatening as to sound reassuring. Not only did he forbid the West from crossing red lines, but he announced …
Articles by: "Slawomir Sierakowski"
US President Joe Biden is very familiar with both Poland and Ukraine. His decades of service as a United States senator and his eight years as vice president under Barack Obama taught him that the …
The biggest wave of protests in years has swept Russia, raising hopes that popular pressure will persist and intensify, gradually eroding an autocratic regime, as is happening in neighbouring Belarus. But we should be wary …
Joe Biden’s election as president of the United States has seriously weakened authoritarian and populist governments around the world. For independent global powers like Russia, Brazil and Turkey, Donald Trump’s departure need not amount to …
Authoritarian political leaders in neighbouring Poland and Belarus have tested the limits of public tolerance in recent months. In both countries, they have provoked mass demonstrations. And in both cases, women have been in the …
Belarusian university students marked the start of the academic year on 1 September by announcing a strike. They planned to gather in Victory Square and then march to the Ministry of Education, where they would …
Things are not going Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s way. Since the fraudulent presidential election on 9 August, the security services have been trying to carry out Lukashenko’s order to end the peaceful protests against his …
After weeks of nationwide protests over a fraudulent election on 9 August, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko seems to have realised that he has lost popular support for good. His last resort is to radicalise his …
Has this week of massive, mostly peaceful protests against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko been merely the calm before the storm? Following the fraudulent presidential election on 9 August, Lukashenko’s latest statements about the expanding protest …
Last Friday marked a symbolic breakthrough in Belarus. Thousands of people gathered at Independence Square in Minsk in front of the National Assembly, including many women and workers—the coalition that saved the opposition in its …
The protests that have roiled Belarus in the week since its stolen presidential election are evolving. Mass demonstrations gave way to more dispersed mobilisations on the model pioneered in Hong Kong. Because such ‘liquid’ protests …
Belarusian opposition leaders knew beforehand that they would be protesting the falsified result of the presidential election this past weekend, and had already adopted three governing principles. Their demonstrations must be absolutely peaceful, they must …