"Eastern " Europe next

 Lithuania’s Defense Ministry advised consumers to throw away their Chinese phones and avoid buying new Chinese produced phones because one version of Xiaomi phone has built-in censorship tools whilea Huawei model has security flaws.

Communist China remains angry that Taiwan  missions in Lithuania are called the Taiwanese Representative Office. Here is a link to an earlier blog with related information on Eastern Europe

oct 12

The Czech Communist party, whose support helped PM Babis keep his majority, failed to enter parliament for the first time since WW2.  Babis, also lost to a center-right coalition fronted by Petr Fiala.

Dec 16, 2021

Belarus gets worse. Sergei Tikhanovsky, a one-time presidential hopeful who was arrested several months before last year’s disputed presidential election, was sentenced to 18 years for organizing mass riots, etc. His wife Svetlana ran in his place, and many said she beat the crowned winner Lukashenko. She fled to Lithuania almost immediately after the election.

Dec 27, 2021

This should make things more interesting with Russia. Ukraine will be able to import 8 million cubic meters of gas from the European market daily via Hungary beginning January 2022.

Jan 4, 2022

While Joe Biden and Germany consider bowing down to Putin, Finnish President Sauli Niinisto argued proposals that Russia gave to the United States and NATO in December to ensure that the alliance did not expand eastward or place mid-range nuclear weapons on its border were "in conflict with the European security order" and challenged Finland's sovereignty.

Jan 20, 2022

 US State Department gave the go-ahead to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to send American made missiles and other weapons to Ukraine. Are we using the side door instead of getting directly in Putin's face?

Jan 24, 2022

If you're keeping score on the Ukraine situation:

Germany won't allow Estonia to send German made arms to Ukraine

Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach stepped down as the head of the German Navy after  stating that Crimea was lost to Ukraine, and we should show Putin more respect

 US State Dept told dependents of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine that they must leave the country but claimed it wasn't an evacuation. That's Biden-speak 101.

Feb 17, 2022

The US Embassy in Bulgaria blamed supply chain disruptions for the delay in the delivery of the new F-16 fighters, and claimed the USA remains committed to the modernization of Bulgaria's armed forces. Something is fishy about the timing of this statement and "supply chain" remains a convenient alibi these days whether it's valid or not.

Feb 18, 2022

I'm trying to get some background on the Ukraine situation and Putin's push to return to one Russia.  Some Ukrainian and Belarusian historians view Rus from the 11th and 12th centuries as no more than a ‘union of monarchs’, a loose collection of warring principalities.

Feb 26, 2022

History: The sack of Kiev in 1169 by the ‘northern’ party was a deeply symbolic act, deliberately designed to undermine the city’s sacred status.

March 12, 2022

I'm trying to catch up on Ukraine, particularly Kiev. The Mongols sacked Kiev in 1240 and remained a force there until the 15th century.  

Most Russians consider the idea of Kiev as the ‘mother of Russian cities’ as central to their understanding of their origins as a nation.

March 19, 2022

Meanwhile, residents of northern Greece travel en masse to Bulgaria for gasoline and groceries, because they can't stand the prices at home.

May 1, 2022

Solzhenitsyn(1918-2008) became Putin's buddy in the 2000s.  He criticized Alexander I for failing to press home Russia’s decisive advantage after the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, and regain Galicia, which is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine.

June 18, 2022

Russia's war in the Ukraine has leaders exploring eastern Europe for answers. Macron sees little chance of an agreement with Russia to get grain out the Ukrainian port of Odessa, but plans are in the works to regenerate rail routes linking Odessa to the Danube River in Romania as an alternative.

June 23, 2022

Finland did not abolish military conscription for males as many other western nations did after the end of the Cold War and claims it 's prepared to fight Russia. Ain't the first time! They fought two wars in the 1940s against its eastern neighbor, with which it shares an 810-mile border. 

June 26, 2022

 Toblerone can no longer call its chocolate bar Swiss because it's adding a plant in Slovakia, and it will not be exclusively made in Switzerland. It's changing its design to say originated in Switzerland.

July 20, 2022

Belgium has gone through many phases, including periods of neutrality, since 1830 when it declared independence from Netherlands.  USA State Department green-lighted the potential sale of F-16 sustainment and related equipment worth $127 million to Belgium.

July 26, 2022

"The Russian troops who were in Belarus in February under the guise of a so-called 'training exercise' have not left our territory." Max, is a member a network of Belarusian opposition activists in Ukraine, who view their temporary new home as the perfect base to continue the fight against Putin and Lukashenko.

Aug 20, 2022

 USA will give the Czech Republic eight Bell military helicopters for free, and the Czech defense minister said it was recognition of the NATO country's aid to Ukraine. I know the world has changed since my youth during the cold war days, but it's a headline I'd never thought I'd see.

Sept 18, 2022

Poland’s top leaders celebrated the opening yesterday of a new canal that will mean ships no longer must secure Russia’s permission to sail from the Baltic Sea to the ports of the Vistula Lagoon. The canal is not quite finished but should give Poland full sovereignty in the northeastern region and encourage development of a region that borders Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

The intersystem gas connection Greece-Bulgaria will begin operation on October 1, and the planned initial capacity of the interconnector is 3 billion cubic meters per year.

Oct 7, 2022

In the recent parliamentary elections in Bulgaria 87,378 voters chose "I do not support anyone".

Nov 17, 2022

Austria and Hungary pledged to help Serbia organize deportations by plane of people who come to the Balkan nation from so-called safe countries of origin and aren't eligible for asylum in the EU or in Serbia. The migrants come into Serbia from North Macedonia and Bulgaria after arriving there from Turkey and Greece. 

Dec 28, 2022

Not surprising but noteworthy: A Minsk court sentenced in absentia former Olympic swimmer Aliaksandra Herasimenia to 12 years in prison for public calls to commit actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus. And it also ordered the seizure of Herasimenia's apartment, her car, and $48,700 in her bank accounts.

Jan 15, 2023

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Surva, a festival held every January in the village of Kosharevo, Bulgaria, is a mixture of Christian and pagan rituals that can be traced back to Thracian times. Revellers dress in red, some wearing huge masks and belts strung with large copper bells, dance around a fire on the main square to drive away evil spirits and bring in good health and crops for the New Year.  

Jan 30, 2023

After the Soviet-Yugoslavia split in the late 1940s, Albania and Bulgaria were the main conduits the USSR used to funnel funds to the communists in Greece.

Feb 19, 2023

In April 2022 in response to the massacre of civilians by Russian troops in Ukraine, the Lithuanian Art Creators' Association called for an embargo on Russian culture and art in Lithuania until the end of the war in Ukraine. I get the anger but don't see how it's made you safer and rejecting the existence of Russian art doesn't mean it vanishes from the planet.

March 2, 2023

Someone painted the Russian flag on the base of the Little Mermaid sculpture which is displayed on a rock by the waterside at the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen, Denmark. How did no one witness the vandal at play?

April 3, 2023

In Finland the Conservative National Coalition party emerged victorious with 20.7 percent, In second place the nationalist Finns party with 20.1 percent, and PM Sanna Marin's Social Democrats garnered 19.9 percent. All of this as Finland prepares to join NATO.

April 7, 2023

Azerbaijan expelled four Iranian diplomats this week. Back in January Azerbaijan closed its embassy in Tehran after its head of security was killed in an attack and then last week opened an embassy in Israel.

April 16, 2023

Western Bosnia was called Ottoman Croatia in the 1600s.

April 22, 2023

I missed this story from late 2022. American combat drones are deployed at the air base in the Greek city of Larissa. The base is used for training NATO pilots. 

May 3, 2023

Just a reminder of why Denmark is important: It controls the entrance to the Baltic Sea, and will likely play an important strategic role in a potential military conflict with Russia as a transit point for NATO reinforcements.  Hence, Denmark's intelligence service expects Russia to recruit civilians and use journalists, business executives, etc, to spy on the country as an alternative to Russian diplomats who were expelled last year. Will headlines be borrowing from Shakespeare? "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark."

May 27, 2023

I've been reading a history of Romania book and am shaking my head at this ruling. ECHR ruled Romania must legalize same-sex civil unions. Orthodox religions in Romania survived decades of Communism, let's see how they handle extreme secularists.

 Increasing signs of jihadist groups plotting possible attacks in Europe, including in the Netherlands.  Let's not get too consumed with the Ukraine.

June 15, 2023

UDMR's ethnic Hungarian party is quitting Romania's governing coalition in a row over cabinet posts. It has served as a bridge between the coalition's main two parties, the leftist Social Democrats and the center-right Liberals. Hungarians have a long, sometimes testy history in Romania.

June 29, 2023

Morocco and Turkey are upset that a Swedish court gave an Iraqi refugee permission to burn some pages of the Koran outside Stockholm's central mosque. It's a part of freedom which ain't always pretty.

Sept 19, 2023

Bulgarian Beekeepers are pissed: Ukrainian and Chinese honey are marketed as Bulgarian honey.

Oct 16, 2023

Romania is moving its air defense closer to its Danube border due to Russian drone parts landing there.

Also, the deployment of four additional US F-16 fighter jets and an expanded no-fly zone, are signs of growing concern in Romania that the war in Ukraine could spill over into its territory.

Oct 21, 2023

Germany pushed Bulgaria to declare a token war on the USA and UK in December 1941, and Sofia was bombed by the Allies in January 1944.

Jan 9, 2024

Bulgaria and Romania will enter the Schengen via Air and Sea in 2024 - no additional refugee-related conditions from Syria and Afghanistan.

The goal is to ease travel for citizens and the strengthened internal markets within the Schengen area.

Jan 21, 2024

Shakespeare's comment on rot in Demark resonates a little more while reading about the Vikings: Norway-Demark-England battles.

Sure feels like being King was the main reason for living.

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