Catch up quickly with the stories from Central and Eastern Europe that matter, this week led by news of Russia closing in on the Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk.
Russia’s war on Ukraine
As Ukraine raids Russia, it is losing a key battle at home.
Authorities this week urged civilians in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk to evacuate immediately in the face of rapidly advancing Russian forces, while Moscow claimed to have repelled an attempted Ukrainian incursion into the border region of Bryansk.
Communities in and around Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, are being urged to flee within the next two weeks as Russian forces are rapidly advancing.
“Don’t wait. It will not get better, it will only get worse. Leave.” That was the stark warning of local official Yurii Tretiak, the head of the military administration in the town of Myrnohrad, which is now less than 4.8 kilometres from the frontline.
There are nearly 59,000 residents in the entire community, which encompasses Pokrovsk City, Myrnohrad town and 39 surrounding villages, according to the Pokrovsk City military administration. Roughly 600 to 700 people have been evacuating daily, the administration said.
The evacuations come as Ukraine’s Armed forces said Wednesday that Pokrovsk is now “the hottest” front of the war. “The situation in the Pokrovsk sector remains tense. Ukrainian troops repelled 11 attacks, fighting continues in four locations,” Ukraine’s Armed Forced said in the latest update.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukrainian forces are being reinforced in the eastern region to repel a potential Russian advance.
Western suppliers should let Ukraine fire their powerful long-range weapons at targets in Russia, Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.
Borrell—who, as the EU’s foreign policy chief, counts as its top diplomat—argued for “lifting restrictions on the use of capabilities vs the Russian military involved in aggression against Ukraine, in accordance with international law”.
It would “strengthen Ukrainian self defence by ending Russia’s sanctuary for its attacks” as well as saving lives and advancing peace efforts.
Borrell said the matter would be on the agenda for discussions during back-to-back meetings of EU foreign and defence ministers taking place on August 29-30 in Brussels, involving Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister.
After speaking with Kuleba, Borrell also said Ukraine’s Kursk counteroffensive had dealt a “severe blow” to Vladimir Putin’s war narrative.
The Ukrainian parliament this week approved legislation banning religious organisations with ties to Russia, paving the way for Kyiv to end the activities of the Moscow-linked orthodox church on its soil.
The Verkhovna Rada approved the law on Tuesday in its second and final reading, with 265 lawmakers voting in its favour and 29 against, according to MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.
Ukrainian officials have long argued that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) operates as an arm of the Russian Orthodox Church to undermine Ukraine and that it is complicit in Russia’s full-scale war.
In particular, Ukrainian officials accuse the UOC-MP of working closely with Russia’s powerful security service, the FSB.
“The Russian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with faith — it is a tool of the special services,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, wrote on Telegram.
Other news from the region
The European Commission is steadfast in its intention to pursue a strategic partnership on raw materials with Serbia despite concerns over President Aleksandar Vučić’s claims that western powers lie behind widespread protests against a planned lithium mine. The Commission remains “fully committed” to the partnership—the latest in over a dozen Brussels has signed to reduce dependence on China for access to the critical raw materials essential for electric car batteries and Europe’s ongoing energy transition—spokesperson for trade Johanna Bernsel said on Tuesday.
Interim Bulgarian Prime Minister Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva told local media on Monday that there was pressure on her to choose particular ministers in her proposed cabinet which earlier in the day had been unexpectedly rejected by President Rumen Radev. As a result of the presidential veto, itself an unprecedented move, the new interim PM has to draft a new cabinet—meaning that the next general election in Bulgaria will be rescheduled from October 20 to a later date. It will be the country’s seventh general election in three years.
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said he’ll be a candidate in presidential elections later this year, a move that may strain ties between the two main parties of the governing coalition. The 56-year-old leader announced his bid on Tuesday in a audio recording sent to his party members and obtained by the G4Media news website. The decision to run follows pressure from his Social Democrats to put himself forward for a post that the party hasn’t occupied in two decades. Ciolacu’s move pits him against National Liberal Party leader Nicolae Ciuca, who has already announced his presidential bid.
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani this week said that Kosovo is in consultations with the international community on opening the main bridge in Mitrovica that divides ethnic Albanian and Serbian communities. Osmani told RFE/RL in an interview that opening the bridge, which has been a point of contention because of concerns that it would increase already high ethnic tensions, is a priority and could turn into a “symbol of normalisation” in relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The bridge divides the Albanian-majority southern side and a Serb-majority northern side of the city.
Georgian authorities have yet to demonstrate that they are conducting effective investigations into a spate of violent attacks on civic and political activists over recent months, Human Rights Watch said this week. “A pattern of harassment and intimidation of activists, independent media, and government critics, if left unpunished, risk emboldening malicious actors to escalate violence in the months before Georgia’s upcoming elections,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Georgia is set to hold a crucial parliamentary election at the end of October.
Jailed war criminal Radovan Karadžić is suing the UK government claiming he suffers inhumane treatment—as he’s not allowed a laptop in his cell. The tyrant, dubbed The Butcher of Bosnia, wants 50,000 UK pounds for human rights breaches. He claims he has also been banned from communicating in his native Serbian and denied food needed to control his diabetes. Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadžić, 79, is in Albany prison on the Isle of Wight having been convicted in 2019 of genocide against Croats and Muslims during the Balkans War.
Bookbot, a Czech online platform for second-hand books, this week announced a four million euros Series A funding round at a valuation of over 20 million euros. The round was led by new investor Genesis Growth Equity Fund I with the participation of existing shareholder Miton. Since its foundation in 2019 Bookbot has been a rapidly unfolding success story that has made it the biggest seller of second-hand books in Czechia. Bookbot expanded to Slovakia in 2022, to Austria in the summer of 2023 and to Germany in the fall of 2023. The investment is dedicated to accelerate growth in the DACH market.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) this week approved a 17.5 million US dollars grant to help improve women’s agricultural skills and boost food security in Tajikistan. The Resilient Livelihoods and Empowerment of Rural Women Project aims to improve productivity of women-led farms, strengthen agriculture processing and storage facilities, and enhance support to vulnerable women in six districts of Khatlon, the country’s most populous province and biggest agricultural producer. “ADB invests in women as agents of change,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov.
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