#post-soviet-legacy

#post-soviet-legacy

When the first Ukrainian-designed drone to be made in a German factory rolled off the production line last month, Volodymyr Zelenskyy knew it marked a turning point for the economy. With drone-making joint ventures also well advanced in Finland and Denmark, war-torn Ukraine has shown how its businesses can adapt and break out of their bomb-threatened domestic confines, becoming more integrated into the EU's industrial network with each passing day.

The narratives they offer through culture are therefore some of the clearest expressions of how they see their role in a wartime country. This year, Moscow has hosted two major government-backed awards ceremonies one for books, one for films. In both cases, the organisers played it safe, repeating familiar themes, many of them rooted in Soviet-era cultural and wartime mythology. Prizes went largely to people within the same orbit in most cases, the families of well-known Soviet-era cultural icons.

Their gathering still had to be dispersed, but the enthusiasm that Ored Recordings inspires even among enforcers of the law speaks volumes about the power of what Khalilov and his friend and label co-founder Timur Kodzoko call punk ethnography: the recording of religious chants, laments and displacement songs at family gatherings, local festivals, in people's kitchens, to fight against the erasure of Circassian culture.

This is probably only funny to me as a first-gen American of Western European parents.

But the echoes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin's imperial land grab of the waiter's own country are clear to him. They're crazy. The pair of them. For those paying more attention in Ukraine, amid Russian airstrikes, the freezing cold and power cuts, the correspondences are not only clear, but often alarming even if for now Trump has switched from sabre rattling to trying to rationalise a vague and incoherent deal he thinks he struck for the territory with Nato.

They threw everything they had at us [until] there were no more chairs to hurl at each other, Vucic recounted in a magazine interview 20 years later. Dinamo supporters then stampeded the pitch, where their team jumped into the fray, assaulting police officers, and the game was officially called off before it began.

Wadephul said speaking in Latvia that what was seen during the peace talks in UAE is "Russia's stubborn insistence on the crucial territorial issue." "And if there is no flexibility here, I fear that the negotiations may still take a long time or may not be successful at this stage," he said. He added, "Our commitment to diplomacy does not weaken our determination to support Ukraine."

Estonia, which borders Russia, has called for a Europe-wide visa ban on Russian veterans of the Ukraine war, and has gained support from Baltic and Nordic countries. Its interior ministry estimates as many as 1.5 million Russians have taken part in the invasion, about half of them having served on the frontline. Estonia's interior minister, Igor Taro, said the threat posed was not theoretical, adding that the Russians had combat experience and military training, and may often have a criminal background.

The Soviet front of World War II, the Great Patriotic War for Russians, lasted 1,418 days. The special military operation as Vladimir Putin dubbed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, reached its 1,418-day mark on January 12. Nearly four years of war that, in the Soviet theater, resulted in the retreat of the Third Reich from Moscow and the Volga to Berlin, while the Kremlin's current campaign remains entrenched in Donbas.

Technically, we will be ready in 2027, Zelenskyy told reporters, Reuters reported, adding that by the end of 2026 Ukraine will have implemented the main steps required for membership. I think the European Commission may have a slightly more nuanced view on that, given its last year's progress report pointing to some level of preparation in many areas, with only limited progress on some of the key issues, such as fight against corruption, or insufficient capacity in some areas looked at by the EU.

On Wednesday Brussels is due to outline the terms of the 90bn loan it has promised to Ukraine, amid internal tensions over whether Kyiv can use the money to buy US as well as EU weapons. On the same day, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is due to meet ministers from Denmark and Greenland, as Donald Trump continues to insist that the US will take ownership of the latter one way or another.

Taras always resented his dark-red Russian passport and was happy to replace it with a blue Ukrainian one. But it was a process that took him 11 years and two trials. He is one of more than 150,000 Russian nationals living in Ukraine as the war with Russia continues. Most are relatives or spouses of Ukrainians or were born in Ukraine. Some are dissidents seeking refuge or volunteers with the Ukrainian army.

The Zakarpattia region, known for its ski resorts and undulating landscapes, has in recent years become an unlikely focal point of a diplomatic dispute between Budapest and Kyiv. Home to more than 100,000 ethnic Hungarians, Zakarpattia has a complex history of shifting borders and empires, having passed through Austro-Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Soviet rule before becoming part of independent Ukraine. Located in the country's southwest, the region's administrative centre Uzhhorod has been largely unscathed from Russian attacks.

"If we have a referendum I would vote for the unification with Romania. Look at what's happening around Moldova today. Look at what's happening in the world," Moldovan President Maia Sandu said in an interview with British podcast, The Rest is Politics, on January 11. "It is getting more and more difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country, and of course to resist Russia," she added.

Ukraine and its neighbor Moldova both experienced power outages on Saturday amid problems on Ukraine's grid, officials said. The grid emergency caused a halt to Kyiv's water supply and metro operations, while most districts in Moldova's capital, Chisinau, were without electricity, they said.