Hello, everyone, I am heading to the Baltic region (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) next week for a quick reporting trip, so this newsletter will be on hiatus until I return.
For context, each of the three Baltic states has fewer than 3 million inhabitants. But they are all former members of the Soviet Union (the Soviet Union invaded and occupied all three countries at the beginning of the Second World War) that are now members of the European Union and NATO, which means they are very clear-eyed about the Russian threat at their border, and they all punch way above their weight in defense spending.
Last year, the three countries announced they aim to raise their defense budgets to 3% of GDP, higher than NATO's stated goal of 2%. They've also been instrumental in advocating for more weaponry for Ukraine since the start of the war.
It's been a long time (9 years!) since I last visited the region, so I'm excited to return. On my last trip, I spent a few weeks in the Lithuanian cities of Vilnius and Kaunas, reporting on what was then termed "multicultural populism" and how the erstwhile ruling conservative party prioritized the integration of ethnic Poles and Russians.
Needless to say, a lot has changed since then.
This week's news from the Baltics: Yahoo News obtained confidential strategy documents drawn up by the Kremlin that reveal Russia’s plans to exert its influence in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The documents "show Moscow’s intention to thwart the construction of NATO military bases, weaken the local democratic governments, expand Russian cultural and linguistic influence and bolster pro-Kremlin political organizations," the article reads.
Meanwhile, Denmark said this week that it would allocate a battalion of soldiers to the Baltic states for the "long term," according to Estonian media. Estonia said the move would strengthen regional security.
And Euractiv reports that Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are asking fellow NATO members to ramp up air defense support to secure the alliance's Eastern flank.
I'll be back after my trip with, I hope, a lot of reporting from the region.
Until then, please send questions, complaints, or fan mail to: c.maza@protonmail.com.
What I'm writing:
Everyone wants to know when and where Ukraine's Spring offensive will take place. But not knowing may be exactly the point.
My latest, on the efforts to arm Ukraine and whether weapons will be decisive in the next battle to retake territory: https://t.co/qDJSGD1lGt— Cristina Maza (@CrisLeeMaza) May 5, 2023
• More than 40 days after the start of spring, Ukraine’s long-awaited offensive could be about to kick off. But no one knows precisely when or where it will happen—uncertainty that could be critical to Ukraine’s success. This story is unlocked and free to read.
• New details about life in Yemen, where the world’s most acute humanitarian crisis is unfolding, are slowly being revealed as nearly a decade of war winds down. Now, human-rights advocates are calling on the Biden administration to hold people accountable for using starvation as a tool of war.
As more details emerge about the decade-long war in Yemen, human-rights advocates are calling on the Biden administration to hold people accountable for using starvation as a tool of war.@CrisLeeMaza reports
https://t.co/IU9IBmGp9E pic.twitter.com/MasSptd1lz— National Journal (@nationaljournal) May 3, 2023
What I'm reading:
• Meduza has an article on how Eastern European art became the latest battlefront in countering Russian imperialism.
• Rights activists in Kyrgyzstan say the Kempir-Abad case – an alleged attempt to seize power through force – is politically motivated and designed to stifle state critics. The prisoners don't know what they are accused of plotting. Case files are being kept under wraps, and no trial dates have been set. EurasiaNet has the story.
• In a damning report released on May 2, Human Rights Watch found that forces from both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan committed apparent war crimes during their brief but violent border conflict in September 2022. Katie Putz at the Diplomat has the story.
• Russia claimed that Ukraine tried to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in an overnight drone attack on the Kremlin, news that drew denials from Kyiv, NBC News reports.
• Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the paramilitary organization Wagner group, blamed the death of Russian fighters on the military leadership in Moscow. In a video, Prigozhin pointed to bodies behind him and said, “The blood is still fresh....They came here as volunteers and are dying so you can sit like fat cats in your luxury offices.” The video points to continued infighting in Russia’s military as the campaign fails to advance. CNN has the story.
• Russian ships able to perform underwater operations were present near where explosions later took place on the Nord Stream pipelines, according to a documentary series Putin’s Shadow War made by Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish broadcasters. The BBC has the write-up.
• Two trains were derailed by explosions in the Russian region of Bryansk, on the border with Ukraine, the New York Times reports.
• Serbian police today arrested a gunman suspected of killing eight people and wounding 14 others in the second mass shooting in Serbia in a week, the Washington Post reports.
• Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev escaped unscathed after a large explosion occurred near his car, which the authorities described as a targeted attack on him, Politico Europe reports.
• Hungary is aiming to cement its role as a leader in global far-right by hosting the European version of CPAC, the leading conservative conference in the U.S., Una Hajdari writes for Euronews.
• Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili's participation, and his anti-LGBT speech, at the conservative forum in Budapest were seen as part of an ongoing flirtation with fascism, EurasiaNet reports. Nini Gabritchidze writes:
His 20-minute speech in English included his usual concerns about Russia's war in Ukraine having "no end in sight" and calls for a collective commitment to peace, and also included references to the New Testament and Jesus Christ ("blessed are the peacemakers"). Then came the inevitable mention of "destabilization attempts" against his country, in an apparent hint at his party's conspiracy theory about the collective West trying to drag Georgia into the Ukraine war against Russia.
• Thousands attended May Day rallies in France that ended in clashes, NBC News reports.
• Israel is increasingly relying on facial recognition in the occupied West Bank to track Palestinians and restrict their passage through key checkpoints, according to a new report by Amnesty International on what it refers to as “automated apartheid.”
• Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza agreed to a ceasefire after a Palestinian hunger striker, Khader Adnan, died in an Israeli jail, leading to a flare-up in violence, the BBC reports.
• Former Iranian Minister Alireza Akbari, a British-Iranian citizen hanged in Tehran in January, was a spy for the British foreign intelligence service MI6, British intelligence officials have said. The Telegraph has the story.
• The BBC has a story about Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, the two female journalists who helped break the story of Mahsa Amini's death. They have been detained in two of Iran's most notorious prisons ever since.
• NATO plans to open a liaison office in Japan, its first in Asia, to facilitate regional consultations, Nikkei Asia reports. The office will allow NATO to conduct periodic consultations with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as China emerges as a growing challenge.
• Asia Abdelmajid, one of Sudan’s most famous actors, was killed by a stray bullet during crossfire as the violence between Sudan’s army and its paramilitary force continues in the capital city Khartoum, Deadline reports.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com.