Lauded as a success story during the first wave, the country is now struggling with an explosion of cases.
Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko takes the oath of office during an unannounced inauguration ceremony Sept. 23 in Minsk.
Andrei Stasevich\TASS via Getty Images
Fighting populism requires us to recognise its embeddedness in business elites. Viktor Orbán’s regime is a case in point.
Deploying riot police to suppress peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Belarus turned more people against the country’s autocratic leader.
AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File
Pres. Lukashenka of Belarus has stayed in power for 26 years by being a master tactician. But he has seriously mishandled opposition protests, says a Belarus-born scholar of Eastern European politics.
Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev on a visit to Beijing in 2019. Now China and eastern Europe are going separate ways.
How Hwee Young/EPA
After World War II ended in Europe, millions of ethnic Germans faced an uncertain future. The political repercussions of their expulsion continue even today.
The perception of an immigrant threat in Europe is often thought to be driven by rising numbers of asylum seekers, but research indicates that political and media discourses are often the driving factor.
A ferris wheel in the deserted town of Pripyat, Ukraine.
EPA/Helmut Fohringer
While many countries across Eastern Europe celebrate 100 years since they were born or restored as nation-states after the First World War, not everyone in these states are celebrating.
Because male migrants earn more money to send back home than females, families in some post-communist countries are strongly tempted to use sex-selective abortion to improve their lives.
Johann Walter Bantz/Unsplash
Breeding young men for export has never been a successful economic development strategy. Policies that improve local labour market opportunities could increase the status of women.
Pro-Europeans protest against the rulling coalition Social Democrat Party (PSD) next to the Romanian Atheneum during the ceremony of taking over the Presidency of EU Council in Bucharest January 10, 2019.
Daniel Mihailescu/AFP
Romania is leading the European Council for six months. But its government has been dogged by corruption scandals and judicial overreach.
Monument to the Soviet Army in Sofia, Bulgaria, painted overnight on February 24 2014 by unknown activists in solidarity with anti-Russian protests in Ukraine.
Wikimedia Commons
Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies, University of South Florida