Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk gestures while speaking during the weekly Ministerial meeting in Warsaw.
Poland scraps right to asylum
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in recent days unilaterally suspended the right to asylum for migrants crossing into Poland from neighboring Belarus. Tusk said the move is temporary, meant to stop Russia from directing flows of migrants towards Poland in an effort to destabilize the country. In recent years, Poland and Belarus have nearly come to blows over the issue.
The decision, which has raised concerns among human rights groups, comes just before a major EU summit focused in part on crafting a coherent migration policy that balances the bloc’s supranational human rights laws with national-level concerns about rapid immigration from the Global South. In recent weeks, Germany, the bloc’s largest economy, imposed fresh border checks of its own.
Note: Tusk is no ultra-nationalist. A centrist former European Council president, Tusk was elected last year on a wave of discontent with the long-ruling, far-right Law and Justice party. But in Poland – as elsewhere in the decade since a wave of refugees from the Syrian civil war arrived – calls for tighter immigration policy have moved from the right-wing fringe to the mainstream discourse.
All of this as the numbers are actually falling. Illegal crossings detected byEU border authorities fell 42% in the first nine months of 2024, compared to the same period last year, authorities say. Migrant voyages via the Mediterranean fell drastically, but they in fact rose along eastern routes into the Czech Republic and Poland.
Looking ahead: EU leaders will meet to discuss the issue on Wednesday and Thursday.Servicemen of the 24th King Daniel of Galicia Separate Mechanized Brigade are firing a mortar at the positions of Russian troops near Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on August 14, 2024.
A buffer for Ukraine, new tensions with Belarus?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Ukraine’s military operation in Russia’s Kursk regionaims to establish a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow. Since Aug. 6, Ukrainian forces havedestroyed two key bridges and disrupted Russian supply lines. Further south, there has also been“intense military activity” near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, with the UN’s nuclear watchdog warning of deteriorating safety conditions.
For its part, Russia dismissed reports that Ukraine’s shock attack on Kurskderailed discussions on halting strikes near energy facilities. The Washington Post had claimed that delegations were set to meet in Qatar to negotiate a partial cease-fire, but Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denied the existence of any talks.
Is Belarus next? On Sunday, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed thata third of his country’s armed forces have been deployed along its border with Ukraine. Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Minsk’s move was in response to Ukraine’s “aggressive policy” of stationing over 120,000 troops on its side of the border. Lukashenko also said the Belarusian-Ukrainian border is heavily mined.
Ukrainian officials downplayed the situation. Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s border service,denied seeing any increase in Belarusian units or equipment at the border and criticized Lukashenko for “constantly escalating the situation with regularity to please the terrorist country.” We’re watching whether Belarus is bluffing, or whether this could open up another front in the war — and what moving the frontline to Belarus would mean for NATO allies like Poland.Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin drinks tea
Russian nukes move into NATO’s backyard
Russia made good on its promise to move some of its nuclear arsenal to Belarus, putting Russian-controlled nuclear weapons on NATO’s doorstep.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country is hosting the nuclear weapons in response to Poland’s aggression. Over the last two weeks, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – who’s positioning himself as the national security candidate ahead of national elections in October – has sent thousands of troops to the border amid rising troop numbers and tensions.
But Russia and Belarus aren’t going to trigger the wrath of NATO lightly, and the transition of weapons, “appears to be largely a signal of strength to the West, rather than a preparation for their use,” says Alex Brideau, Eurasia Group’s Europe Head.
NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denounced Moscow’s move, but Brideau thinks the response that matters most – to Putin at least – is President Joe Biden’s. “Washington has been cautious in its responses since the February 2022 invasion," Brideau says, noting that “we haven't seen much in terms of concrete US actions to the Russian government's threats about the deployment or use of nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, the US Embassy issued a security warning yesterday, urging Americans in Belarus to leave the country immediately. The move appears to be motivated by rising tensions in the region, not the nukes. We will be watching to see whether Russia’s latest move is severe enough to harden Biden’s rhetoric.
How do you think the US should respond? Let us know what you’d do in Biden’s shoes here.
Don't count Yevgeny Prigozhin out
In late June, the oligarch, longtime Putin ally, and Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin shocked the world (and Vladimir Putin) when he marched his troops through Russia in what appeared to be a coup against Moscow. Although he backed down, Marie Yovanovitch, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, thinks the story is far from over.
"There are probably a number of different phases of the Prigozhin rebellion," Yovanovitch tells Ian Bremmer in the latest episode of GZERO World, "and we're not at the end of it yet."
So why hasn't Putin more brutally punished Prigozhin and his followers for insubordination? And how should the West take advantage of this internal strife within Russia?
Watch this episode: Ukraine's counteroffensive on the brink
And watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld and on US public television. Check local listings.
Why Russia is fighting in Ukraine without any allies
When it comes to the war in Ukraine, Russia stands alone.
From the Russian perspective, the Ukraine invasion is a battle for the survival of the country against NATO and the collective West, who, the Russia says, wants to destroy Russia and eliminate its influence around the world. But given the fact that virtually no allies have joined Russia in a fight it views as perfectly legitimate, does the Kremlin need a sense of reality and be more modest about what it thinks it can accomplish in the region?
On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, former director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and Kremlin ally, Dmitri Trenin, lays out the Russian view of the war and why the Kremlin feels it is fighting a war of existential importance.
“Russian is being ganged up against because of its determination to protect and defend its own national interest,” Trenin argues, “That’s how it’s seen.”
According to Trenin, Russia had no expectation of its formal allies, like Kazakhstan, picking up arms and fighting in Ukraine. The same goes for China, who Trenin says is major supporter of the Russian economy, but needs to protect its own interests militarily. Despite being increasingly isolated on the national stage, Trenin says that the stakes are so high, Russia will likely keep fighting until the bitter end.
“Either it protects its national security interest in Ukraine and wide in Europe’s east,” Trenin says, “Or the future of Russia will be very bleak.”
Watch the full interview on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television nationwide. Check local listings.
Russian tactical nukes in Belarus avoids direct escalation
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Trump arraigned, again. What's next?
I guess what's next is more cases. I mean, at the end of the day, I still think that the January 6th case, as well as the efforts to overturn the election outcome in Georgia are substantively more serious, at least in terms of what they will mean for people that do or don't decide to vote for Trump in a general election, assuming he gets the nomination, than how he mishandled classified documents and then lied to people around it. Especially because he doesn't really have a motive, aside from the fact that he's a child and thinks that he should have access to these documents. But I mean, the key point here is that we've got a justice overseeing the case that was appointed by Trump and will certainly be very, very favorable towards every delay the Trump lawyers want. So this is going to make lots of headlines, but is not going to move until after the nomination, probably not until after election. So again, it's a crazy thing to say, but he's more likely to get the nomination on the back of all this news than not.
Why is Russia planting tactical nukes in Belarus?
Well, I mean, it is one thing that they can do that implies symbolic pressure on the Ukrainians and on NATO and doesn't take significant direct escalatory steps that would threaten Russia. In other words, Putin understands that by making that move, he's dangerous, but he's not forcing NATO to do anything in response. Also, keep in mind, NATO's been escalating quite significantly over the past months, irrespective of Russia right now. I think that the Belarus issue is kind of a canard, it's not one of the serious headlines here. More serious is the dam getting blown up. More serious are F-16s eventually coming to the Ukrainians. More serious is how this counteroffensive goes and how much land the Ukrainians can take back. We'll watch that closely.
Is Serbia taking over sports?
I don't know. I mean, I thought Norway was for the beginning of the week, last week, especially when Ruud looked like he was going to take that first set at the French Open, but no, no. Now, with Jokić and Djokovic, it's true. It's got two big Serbs, and they're both very big Serbs. There's no question. I wouldn't say the Serbs are taking over sports, I'd say, "Congrats for a couple of big wins." I watched the French Open. It was cool to watch. And congratulations for someone who's been, politically, a little crazy, but plays tennis like nobody's business. I'm willing to differentiate those two things.
More unmanned attacks on the Kremlin?
In the latest episode of his public-access AMA show Putin' it Out There, Russia's president gets swarmed. #PUPPETREGIME
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
Subscribe to GZERO Media's YouTube channel to get notifications when new videos are published.
picture of Planet Earth.
Ukraine’s war and the non-Western world
A new poll provides more evidence that Western and non-Western countries just don’t agree on how best to respond to the war in Ukraine.
Most Americans and Europeans say their governments should help Ukraine repel Russian invaders. Many say Russia’s threat extends beyond Ukraine. People and leaders in non-Western countries mainly want the war to end as quickly as possible, even if Ukraine must surrender some of its land to Russia to bring peace.
That’s not necessarily the message you might take from a recent vote on this subject in the UN General Assembly. On Feb. 24, the invasion’s one-year anniversary, 141 countries voted to condemn the invasion and to demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw from Ukraine. Thirty-two countries abstained. Just six – Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Nicaragua, and Mali – voted with Russia against the motion.
But it’s one thing to denounce the invasion. It’s another to arm Ukraine and sanction Russia.
Among the 32 countries that abstained – a group led by China, India, South Africa, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and others – and even in states like Brazil and Turkey that voted with the majority, there is deep resistance to the Western approach to the war. The reasons vary by region and country, but their argument with the West can be grouped into three broad categories.
First, the US and Europe, they say, are prolonging this costly war at a time when world leaders must turn their attention and focus their nation’s resources on other urgent global threats.
As India’s President Narendra Modi said this week in his role as chair of this year’s G20 summit: “After years of progress, we are at risk today of moving back on the sustainable development goals. Many developing countries are struggling with unsustainable debts while trying to ensure food and energy security. They are also most affected by global warming caused by richer countries. This is why India's G20 presidency has tried to give a voice to the Global South.”
It’s noteworthy that Modi delivered these comments in English.
In other words, the longer the war in Ukraine continues, the longer world leaders will be distracted from other challenges and the fewer resources they’ll have left to meet them.
Second, what gives Europeans and Americans the right, some ask, to decide which wars are legitimate and who is guilty of imperialist behavior? The US says Russia launched an invasion under false pretenses, but memories of Americans hunting Iraq for weapons of mass destruction bolster charges of hypocrisy. Many Latin Americans remember that Cold War-era Western crusades against Russian Communism included support for brutal dictatorship in their countries. Many in Africa and the Middle East who live in states whose borders were drawn by Europeans reject European appeals to defend Ukraine against imperialism.
Third, many developing countries value the chance to buy Russian energy and food exports at bargain prices. Western refusal to buy Russian products has given many poorer states the chance to fuel their recovery in this way, and their governments are well aware that any bid to remove these products completely from markets would cut deeply into global supplies, driving world food and fuel prices to dangerous new highs. Many of these countries need post-COVID economic lifelines and continuing to do business with Russia, especially on newly favorable terms, can help.
Americans and Europeans can make counterarguments in all these areas, but leaders and poll respondents in non-Western countries continue to warn that Western governments can’t expect others to share the sacrifices they claim are needed to resolve Western problems.
Should Western governments worry? The US and Europe will continue to supply Ukraine and sanction Russia with or without help from others. But if Western leaders want to effectively isolate Russia, both economically and diplomatically, reluctance and resistance from non-Western countries will limit how much they can hope to accomplish and how quickly.