2025-08-15 00:38:41
Five years on from a fraudulent election organized by the Lukashenka dictatorship, Belarus’s best-known opposition leader-in-exile believes there’s still hope.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, an opposition candidate in the 2020 presidential election, wants to emphasize that the August anniversary marks more than the theft of a popular vote; it is also the five-year anniversary of Belarus’ peaceful, popular uprising. Following the announcement of Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s victory, and Tsikhanouskaya’s widely supported declaration that it was falsified, the largest demonstrations in Belarusian history erupted nationwide. More than 65,000 people were jailed, and many protesters were beaten.
The outlook, since then, has been bleak — Lukashenka is now an even closer ally of Vladimir Putin and supports his invasion of Ukraine, among other things by providing military bases and prisoner-of-war camps. Belarusians live under repression and in fear, and dissenters are rounded up every day.
But all is not lost, and Tsikhanouskaya described a possible path forward. The Belarusian opposition continues to work in exile and hopes to keep resistance alive. Belarus will need help from the outside, she says, and continued US and European Union (EU) support remains critical.
“The aspirations that people showed five years ago when they wanted democracy, freedom, a different political course for their country — this has not expired,” said Katia Glod, an independent analyst and political risk consultant.
The opposition also seeks to emphasize that aiding democratic efforts in Belarus fit into a broader regional policy of opposing the Kremlin’s imperial expansionism. “Belarus isn’t always on the top of the agenda, but as long as it remains under Putin and Lukashenka, it will always be a threat to Ukraine, NATO, and regional stability,” said Tsikhanouskaya. A long-term hope for Belarusian democratization is that it could incite a similar movement in Russia.
Western allies ought to turn up the heart on the Lukashenka regime instead of engaging him, according to the 42 year-old former teacher. “For years, the West tried to play with the Lukashenka regime, which only emboldened him.” Belarus’s opposition has gained diplomatic ground, though, developing formalized relationships with the EU, Canada, and the UK, and maintaining a strategic dialogue with the US.
The opposition hopes allies can help push change in Belarus by adopting a more assertive policy, including options such as sanctions, political isolation, or non-recognition. Tsikhanouskaya also suggested the appointment of a US special envoy to Belarus similar to retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who serves as the special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
Outside pressure has clearly had some effect — Tsikhanouskaya’s own husband was released from prison after a meeting between the US Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, and Lukashenka. But over 1,100 political prisoners remain.
As a shared policy objective between the West and the Belarusian opposition, the war in Ukraine in particular offers two opportunities to the pro-democracy movement in Belarus.
First, Russia’s war of aggression is generally unpopular among Belarusians. According to a Chatham House survey, only one-third of Belarus’ population supports the war in Ukraine, and Glod notes only 4% support direct Belarusian involvement on Ukrainian soil. Any escalation of Belarusian involvement, combined with domestic discontent, might add fuel to the opposition’s mobilization efforts.
Second, any outcome negotiated between Russia and Ukraine will affect Lukashenka’s strategic position. A favorable outcome for Ukraine could also be an opportunity for the Belarusian opposition. “If peace is made on Ukraine’s terms, it could weaken Putin and Lukashenka with him; that could be our moment to push for change,” said Tsikhanouskaya.
Beyond grand policy measures, allies also have a role to play in supporting grassroots efforts at democratic mobilization. One particularly important fight is in the media space, where most journalists work in exile or at home, although they face arrest and isolation. Yet independent Belarusian media have often proved tech-savvy and continue to operate and overcome barriers to internet access within the country.
Tsikhanouskaya also believes in the importance of preserving Belarusian culture, in stark contrast to the Russian identity that threatens to take over. In strengthening relations with Putin, Lukashenka appears willing to diminish the Belarusian identity to curry favor from the Kremlin. “You might be detained only for speaking the Belarusian language,” said Tsikhanouskaya.
Maryia Sadouskaya-Komlach argued for financial support to organizations trying to support Belarusian cultural identity, both within the country and beyond, where exiles represent an ethnic minority. A forward-facing Belarusian identity might help garner attention to opposition efforts.
This is especially important as Russia and Belarus try to gain ground in the public opinion sphere, hoping to boost support for pro-Russian parties across the EU. One such tactic is the weaponization of legal migration, welcoming legal migrants who hope to seek asylum in Europe in Belarus, and then pushing them to cross borders illegally into the rest of Europe. The hope is that in doing so, Belarus and Russia can spur anti-immigration sentiment and thereby provoke an anti-democratic backlash in Western and Central Europe.
Most recently, Belarus has seen an increase in flights originating from Benghazi in Libya. According to Sadouskaya-Komlach, Lukashenka might hope to use immigration — stopping the flow of illegal migrants — as a bargaining chip against EU leadership.
At present, as so often with dictatorships, the achievement of popular freedom seems far off. That’s not to say the regime has much legitimacy — its rigged elections generate widespread popular disillusionment. The same Chatham House survey found that nearly 40% fewer Belarusians planned to vote in January’s presidential election, with likely participation falling from 75% in 2020 and just 36% planning to do so in 2026. Pro-democracy voters were 50% less likely to cast a vote, citing the belief that the election’s outcome was predetermined and voting against Lukashenka was pointless.
Lukashenka is very clearly disliked and mistrusted by many Belarusians. Tsikhanouskaya and other opposition leaders are fighting to keep alive the hope that one day, sooner rather than later, they will have an opportunity to express this and throw off the country’s pro-Russian dictatorship.
This August 7, 2025, meeting was chaired by CEPA Vice President Christopher Walker and attended by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Katia Glod, and Maryia Sadouskaya-Komlach.
This edited version of the discussion is the work of Amy Graham, who is an Intern with the Editorial team at CEPA.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-15 00:27:58
The arrival of Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, on August 6, provides a stern test for the architecture of the state. Not because of the individual concerned, but because his inauguration has the potential to bring to a climax the systemic dichotomy embedded in the Polish constitution.
The 1997 text divides authority so that neither president nor prime minister holds clear supremacy. That’s fine in periods of political calm; it works much less well at times of partisanship.
Carl Jung once said: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will control you and you will call it fate.” Poland’s political unconscious is exactly this: a governing culture built on improvisation and tribal rivalry, and incapable of producing coherent statecraft. The constitution reflects this condition rather than causing it, enshrining a lack of unity at the top that mirrors the absence of a shared vision of statehood. (Take Nawrocki’s inauguration speech in which he promised resistance to both the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, and to the EU itself.)
The dysfunction has been visible before. During the 2007-2010 cohabitation of Donald Tusk and Lech Kaczyński, a dispute over Poland’s representation at the European Council led to a Constitutional Tribunal ruling that, noting the Constitution leaves the principles and modes of cooperation “to practice and circumstances”, called for coordination rather than a single lead authority. The same uncertainty contributed to the 2010 Smolensk air disaster, when both the president and the prime minister claimed the right to lead the delegation to the Katyń commemoration.
Under Nawrocki’s predecessor, Andrzej Duda, partisan alignment masked these tensions. His loyalty to the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) meant the presidency posed no challenge to the government. The flaw was dormant, not resolved.
The coming test, where president and premier are mutually hostile, will play out in foreign policy, where both the presidency and premiership have rival claims to authority.
The regional environment is unforgiving and ever-worsening. Russia’s war in Ukraine and Belarus’s weaponized migration, keep NATO’s eastern flank under constant strain. Security increasingly dominates Poland’s domestic politics, yet Tusk’s government, sliding in the polls, has failed to project a coherent course. Announcements such as new ammunition factories are welcome, but undercut by confused messaging and procurement controversies. Tusk has declared that Europe lives in “pre-war times,” but the slow pace of rearmament despite record defense spending reinforces the image of a government reacting to events rather than preparing for them.
The opposition has little more to boast of. The insistence by the leadership of the Law and Justice (PiS) party that Poland’s security should rest primarily on the alliance with the United States ignores Washington’s declared shift toward Asia, while transferring more of Europe’s defense burden to Europeans themselves. Its admiration for Donald Trump may well be put to the test, especially if a transactional White House seeks a strategic deal with Moscow, demands higher payments for US security commitments, or imposes trade measures that hurt Polish industries.
There are choppy waters ahead at home, too. If Poland’s budget is not passed within four months of submission, the president can dissolve the Sejm, making it entirely possible for Law and Justice to return to power well before scheduled elections in 2027.
Poland’s rulers on both sides of the divide have too often failed to operate the machinery of government to the nation’s advantage. Administrations have tended to yield new faces with similar reflexes, such as aligning almost unconditionally with US military priorities without securing offsetting industrial or technological benefits[MB1] (for example the $4.6bn deal for F-35 combat aircraft), or displaying a poor track record of negotiating within the EU, often accepting key policy frameworks without extracting meaningful concessions. Poland’s vulnerabilities are thus sustained by its own political culture.
There are some parallels with Polish history here. In the 18th century, before the partitions by neighboring powers that erased Poland from the map, the liberum veto mechanism allowed foreign states to paralyze the Sejm through deputies who were often bribed or motivated by animosity toward domestic rivals more than by loyalty to the state. In the interwar years, the same dynamic reappeared, as factionalism once again undermined the state’s ability to act decisively even as external threats grew.
History never repeats itself but it rhymes, as the saying goes. The underlying dynamic of current events is eerily familiar to Poles. Without a unifying concept of statehood, governance remains a battlefield for political tribes, each convinced of its own mandate and blind to the need for continuity and unity amid the rising Russian menace.
The constitution’s balance between the president and the prime minister fuels rivalry when the two are from opposing camps. Without a single chain of command in foreign affairs, disputes spill into public view, decisions stall, and Poland’s position in NATO and the EU is weakened. When a truce is eventually reached in Ukraine, Russia will most certainly escalate elsewhere — through a hybrid blockade at the Suwałki Gap, a shift in NATO’s force posture, or other pressure points. These moments will demand rapid, unified action.
Breaking this cycle does not necessitate immediate constitutional reform, though such reform is ultimately necessary to correct the deficiencies it locks in. But rewriting the constitution will take time, and Poland cannot afford paralysis in the meantime. Three steps could be taken now.
First, Poland should create a joint crisis decision-making body, similar to France’s Defense and National Security Council or Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense, with legal powers to compel coordinated action between the president, the prime minister, and key ministers within set deadlines. This would replace the current reliance on Poland’s National Security Bureau, which serves only the president, has no binding authority over the government, and functions only when political alignment allows.
Second, the state should codify a clear division of lead roles for EU and non-EU foreign policy, drawing on Finland’s clarity of responsibilities or the Czech practice of government primacy in representation. A binding protocol would eliminate symbolic turf wars and make Poland’s voice consistent abroad.
Third, a permanent expert secretariat, inspired by Lithuania’s State Defense Council, should be established to prepare unified positions in advance and preserve institutional memory across political cycles. This would ensure that national policy is framed in Warsaw before being taken to allies, insulating it from partisan swings and personal rivalries.
In 1787, James Madison called Poland “equally unfit for self-government and self-defense, it has long been at the mercy of its powerful neighbors”. History has indeed judged Poland harshly when it has failed to coordinate its leadership, but also generously when it has found unity and discipline.
The choice now facing Poland’s leaders is stark: overcome egos by confronting the flaws in political culture and institutional design, or let them dictate events. The new presidency will reveal whether Poland is capable of acting as an author of its own fate, or whether it will once again allow others to write the nation’s script.
Maciej Filip Bukowski is the Head of the Energy and Resilience Program at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw, a non-resident fellow with the Tech Policy Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-14 00:24:34
As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin make their way to Alaska for August 15 talks on the future of Ukraine, Europe is nervous — and rightly so.
As two of the world’s superpowers grope for a solution that meets their own interest, Europe and Ukraine find themselves in the unfortunate position of hoping that the summit delivers nothing of substance. They fear any deal that emerges from the talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, just outside Anchorage, will come at their expense.
In their anxiety, Europe and Ukraine are aligned. In the broader strategic context, however, Europe’s posture comes with its own costs. Indeed, Ukraine today finds itself trapped between two equally dangerous strategic illusions. The first is an American belief that Russia can be persuaded to stick to any agreement it signs, or to provide lasting security guarantees for Ukraine. The second is a European belief that its own security can continue to rest primarily on US power.
Both are flawed, both are deeply entrenched, and together they threaten to shape a settlement — if not this week in Anchorage, then at some point in the future — that leaves Ukraine exposed and Europe dependent.
The American illusion is rooted in the idea that Moscow can be brought to accept Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for concessions. For a regime strategically and ideologically committed to imperial dominion, and whose economic machinery and coercive apparatus are entirely dependent on geopolitical conflict, that outcome is simply not available. The only ceasefire Putin can accept in Ukraine is one in which Moscow faces no genuine deterrent against renewed aggression. More fundamentally, without a deep shift in the nature of Russian politics, Russia cannot and will not be a reliable guarantor of Ukrainian peace.
The European illusion, meanwhile, is a legacy of a post-Cold War settlement, in which the so-called peace dividend was unevenly distributed. NATO’s operational cohesion and deterrent credibility have for decades rested on US leadership and expenditure, even as shifting international and domestic politics have undermined America’s strategic commitment to Europe. As a result, even as Europe builds a larger defense-industrial base and rekindles conversations about strategic autonomy, leaders from London to Warsaw remain unable to imagine a security architecture in which the US is not the fundamental pillar.
The six months between Trump’s initial outreach to Putin, when he floated the idea of a land swap leading to normalization, and the upcoming Anchorage summit, which is predicated on the same proposal, was the moment to confront both illusions.
Europe had the chance to act decisively, not only to anchor Ukraine’s security in a European-led framework, but also to redefine its own role in the continent’s defense. Mechanically, this could have meant fast-tracking a surge in defense-industrial expenditure and establishing a reassurance force as a bulwark against Russia’s advances, future or present. Politically, however, it would have meant abandoning efforts to get a seat at the Trump-Putin table and building their own table, firmly planted in the bedrock of Europe’s own strategic interests.
Instead, Europe took the easier option, hoping the tide would turn. European leaders mistook Trump’s often mercurial pronouncements as evidence that he could be moved. Through shuttle diplomacy, Oval Office performances, rounds of golf, and endless video links, European leaders have sought to influence American policy without marshaling the political, military or fiscal capital needed to make that influence real. As a result, it’s not only Ukraine’s future that is being discussed largely without Europe’s decisive input: it’s Europe’s future, too.
Reversing this trajectory will require more than just coordination between Europe and Ukraine. It will take a commitment to the near-term reduction of European dependence on US decision-making, while simultaneously building credible deterrence against Moscow. At this stage, while resources matter, political consistency matters more. A lack of confidence means that Europe’s policy rises and falls with the ebb and flow of the Putin-Trump relationships. That is not sustainable.
One of two things will happen in Alaska. Either Trump and Putin will emerge with a deal, which Trump will try to sell to Ukraine and Europe, or they won’t. If there is a deal, Europe will need to gear up for a rapid and uncontestable response. The likely absence of a deal, however, shouldn’t be taken as a reprieve. If Europe again fails to seize the initiative, it will have resigned itself — and, with it, Ukraine — to living with a settlement that institutionalizes instability and powerlessness.
For all the sound and fury, the genuinely significant discussions are not in Anchorage, but in Europe’s own capitals, defense ministries, and industrial boardrooms, and the risk is not that Europe overreaches, but that it undershoots.
Europe will never have all the resources it needs to assure itself of victory. Failing to go to diplomatic war with the army it has, however, assures it of defeat.
Sam Greene is Director for Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He is also a Professor of Russian Politics at King’s College London. Before joining CEPA, he founded and directed the King’s Russia Institute for 10 years. Prior to moving to London, he lived and worked for 13 years in Moscow.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-13 22:26:23
It has been a long, long time since relations between the South Caucasian nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been so good. The signing of several deals in the White House on August 8 has delivered that, confounded Russia, which breezily describes this as its backyard, and brought prizes to the US, which wins has a direct stake in the region.
It’s all very unusual. As a result of the agreement, the United States now has a 99-year mandate to oversee the creation and operation of a potentially lucrative transit corridor. The project — branded the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP — uses Armenian land that will be subleased by the US to a consortium tasked with its construction and management, which aims to link Turkey in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east, offering a shorter route than the traditional through Georgia.
The idea of a link through Armenia’s southern Syunik province is not new. For years, Azerbaijan has pushed for what it calls the Zangezur Corridor, a 40-km (25-mile) stretch that would connect Azerbaijan proper to its exclave, Nakhchivan, and then onto Turkey.
During the same Washington summit, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan initialed a draft Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and Interstate Relations. The document does not feature a major breakthrough, except perhaps the first article, which states that “the Parties recognize and shall respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of international borders and political independence of each other”.
That is quite a big deal given the wars and fearsome rhetoric that have marred relations between the two since before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Armenia first took the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, with its large Armenian minority, in the 1990s and then lost it to Azerbaijan in 2023.
The Armenian and Azerbaijani sides also agreed to dissolve the OSCE Minsk Group of France, Russia, and the US — a major Azerbaijani demand that Armenia was previously unwilling to concede.
Other outcomes of the talks included bilateral arrangements with Washington. President Donald Trump signed an order lifting Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, which had barred US military assistance to Azerbaijan since the first Nagorno-Karabakh war. The oil companies, SOCAR and the US firm ExxonMobil, concluded a memorandum of understanding, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan inked agreements with Trump on the “Crossroads of the World” initiative – Armenia’s energy and transportation plan to improve regional links, as well as cooperation in artificial intelligence and energy security. The US plans to finalize similar agreements with oil- and gas-rich Azerbaijan under a broader strategic partnership charter.
It all looks very encouraging for the region’s future, but there are important riders. While the text represents a step toward normalizing relations, both sides acknowledged that additional work is needed before the accord can be formally signed and ratified.
Some significant problems remain. The Washington meeting did not produce a final peace treaty — contrary to what was reported in some Western media. Azerbaijan insists that Armenia must amend its constitution, removing any references that could be interpreted as claims over Nagorno-Karabakh, before a treaty can be signed. President Ilham Aliyev reiterated in Washington that the newly signed documents do not remove this precondition: “Once the Armenian constitution is amended accordingly, a peace treaty can be signed at any time,” he stated.
Border demarcation is also contentious. Questions persist over whether Azerbaijani troops will withdraw from positions that Yerevan says they captured during the clashes following the second Nagorno-Karabakh war of 2020.
As for the TRIPP, differences might arise from customs procedures for cargo crossing Armenia. Also, how would the US control the corridor on the ground, and what will happen if danger to the route arises? And last but not least, will the US maintain its commitment for the 99-year term? These and other questions will undoubtedly arise and will require answers.
There are also geopolitical problems. Iran and Russia see danger in the US presence, even though American forces will not be deployed along the TRIPP; it puts a US presence bang in the middle of the key north-south land route between the allies.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs talked about “the negative consequences of any form of foreign intervention, especially near shared borders”. In a phone call, the Armenian leadership tried to assuage the concerns of its long-time Iranian ally, stating that the agreement will be beneficial to the region and that Iran will not be denied access to Armenia, that Yerevan will retain administrative control — since the road crosses its sovereign territory — and underlined the pledge not to involve US troops.
A similar call took place with the Russian leadership, which views the development with suspicion. Once the major mediator in Armenian-Azerbaijani affairs, the Kremlin now faces unexpected competition from Washington.
The Foreign Ministry publicly stated that it favors “a zone of stability and prosperity” in the South Caucasus, but more importantly warned that regional disputes should be resolved by regional states — meaning Turkey, Iran, and Russia — rather than outside powers. Russian policy analysts and especially media commentators (state media called the agreement a crisis) are even more open in their criticism of what is happening in the South Caucasus.
Perhaps the biggest winner is Turkey, for which the route would open a second land link to the Caspian and Central Asia, bypassing Iran. The US, too, may lean on Turkey for the management and security of the route. TRIPP’s existence will drive Russia and Iran closer on South Caucasus issues, and they can be expected to resist its success.
Emil Avdaliani is a research fellow at the Turan Research Center and a professor of international relations at the European University in Tbilisi, Georgia. His research focuses on the history of Silk Roads and the interests of great powers in the Middle East and the Caucasus.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-11 23:26:37
Speculation swirls around the US-Russia meeting in Anchorage planned for Friday. Will Ukraine be at the table, or on the menu? What leverage (if any) will the US apply to Russia to extract concessions and reward compliance? Will the Europeans’ belated, frantic efforts to get their point of view across bear fruit? Anything could happen, from a walkout to a sellout.
But the winners and losers are already clear. First and foremost, the Chinese Communist Party: not invited, but on everyone’s mind. Decision-makers in Beijing did not like Russia’s reckless illegal war, but they liked even less the idea of it losing. So the CCP helped the Putin regime keep fighting. It also kept the brakes on his nuclear sabre-rattling. The CCP has not only established unshakeable dominance in the Sino-Russian relationship. China is now a power-broker across the Eurasian landmass in a way that would have been unimaginable only 10 years ago: a foretaste of the influence the CCP will exercise on other continents too.
Second, the Kremlin’s decade-old pariah status is over. Far from being arrested for child abduction and other crimes arising from his murderous war on Ukraine, the Russian leader will be treated as a VIP when he lands on American soil. We are almost back to the era of the “reset”, when President Barack Obama took the supposedly liberal new Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to his favourite cheeseburger joint.
All Western countries are less safe now. The multilateral organisations that supposedly guarantee their security have been shown to be toothless irrelevancies. Clearly, only big states matter (along with a handful of exceptionally able Trump-whisperers, such as Finland’s president Alexander Stubb). Why should anyone take the European Union seriously? Or for that matter, NATO? Ukraine may escape formal dismemberment at the summit, but the fact that “land swaps” of occupied for unoccupied territory are even talked about highlights the failure of those self-important institutions in their gleaming Brussels headquarters.
Another big loser is international law, and particularly the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was meant to mark a big step towards ridding the world of nuclear weapons. The failure of the US, Britain, France, and China to hold Russia to account for breaching it makes the deal worse than useless. Why would any country now agree to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for promises? Why would any country that fears nuclear blackmail hesitate to get these weapons for itself? This is no way to mark the 80th anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
What remains is detail. How will the fighting end, and where, and with what monitoring, enforcement, or guarantees? We may not find that out in Alaska this week, but we should already be asking much bigger questions. Where and when will war start again? And what will we do about it?
The West had many chances, dating from the early 1990s, to stand up to Russia all at times when transatlantic unity was far stronger than now. We failed. Not because anyone made us fail, but because we got bored, tired, and scared. We had the chance to stand up to Russia with a strong, united Ukraine on our side. We failed that, too. We were not willing to give Ukrainians the weapons and the money they needed when they had a chance of winning, and to take the risk of a defeated Russia collapsing or lashing out. First, the threat was too indistinct and distant. Then it was too grave. Western political decision-making was divided and self-indulgent.
European leaders may not like President Trump’s latest intervention. But where was theirs?
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-08-11 14:00:00
Political turmoil has reached new levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the second consecutive court verdict against Milorad Dodik. The Bosnian Serb leader, known for his secessionist tendencies and affection for Vladimir Putin, was convicted on appeal for defying decisions by the High Representative, Bosnia’s international overseer.
Dodik faces a year’s imprisonment, a six-year ban from holding political positions, and has been stripped of his current position as president of the country’s Republika Srpska entity.
Dodik is unhappy, calling the verdict a farce (and worse) and blaming foreigners in Bosnia, including EU officials and the High Representative, and Bosniaks from Sarajevo.
Losing his political position is more worrisome for Dodik than going to jail. According to national law, the convicted politician can — and will — exchange his prison sentence for a fine of approximately $22,000. No matter, he can still be replaced on the political scene; there are challengers from his own opposition, and Western countries may not mind seeing the more moderate Željka Cvijanović, the current Serbian member of the state-level Presidency, step out of Dodik’s shadow.
The coming weeks will center on Dodik’s fight to maintain his political legitimacy in the Serbian entity. He is unlikely to go quietly — possibly calling a referendum to demand his restoration to the position, or activating his international allies to pull strings on his behalf.
A friend in need is a friend indeed. His circle of allies is quite small (or exclusive) and includes Russia, Serbia, and Hungary. Dodik may also hope for assistance from the White House, having reached out to Trump. But who can Dodik really count on?
While Russia can do little to intervene in the legal-political processes in Bosnia, causing havoc in the country remains one of its top priorities. The more instability Bosnia (and the entire Balkans) endures, the better it is for Putin, since this diverts Western attention from Ukraine. The Kremlin, as always, can support Dodik by using the same narrative about the alleged injustices he faces, but it cannot provide him with any substantial assistance. The only symbolic gesture, which has been previously deployed, is calling for a UN Security Council meeting over Dodik.
President Trump’s involvement would mix things up. Dodik has wasted no time reaching out to the American president and even compared his own political struggles to what Trump experienced during the previous administration.
Dodik sees Trump as someone who, by using the same narrative about political injustice, might be able to influence internal dynamics in Bosnia. That would include US advocacy for the removal of the High Representative and pressure on Bosnia’s legal institutions in his favor.
The White House has so far been silent about Dodik’s sentencing, and this silence may indicate a future change in position. Since January, the US has stopped openly signaling an unwavering commitment to the High Representative, although it still backs the country’s territorial integrity and opposes forces actively seeking to undermine the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords.
In March, in an attempt to grab Trump’s attention, Dodik even offered the lithium reserves under Republika Srpska soil to companies chosen directly by the US president.
Dodik’s most valuable international allies are more traditional and much closer. Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán were the first to call the verdict a political witch-hunt. Like Dodik, they blamed “unelected political representatives” for it.
Vučić has closer ties to the White House than Dodik, and Serbian diplomacy has already launched a quest to influence the US administration, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Dodik’s situation. This diplomatic offensive is the maximum the Serbian president can do for his Bosnian ally. Vučić is preoccupied with internal issues, including mass protests that have challenged his hold on power since last year. He cannot ignore Dodik, but his support now has serious limitations.
Backing for Dodik’s cause seems almost unlimited when it comes to Orbán. The Hungarian prime minister, who in recent years has become the Bosnian Serb’s main European ally, vehemently protects his ideologically aligned Bosnian friend, to the extent of sending at least 70 members of a Hungarian anti-terrorist police squad commanded by his former bodyguard to extract him in February in case Dodik faced arrest. VSquare reported that this provoked a rebuke from the US.
Over the past few years, Hungary has become a haven for politicians fleeing their national justice systems and prison sentences, including North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Polish Deputy Minister of Justice Marcin Romanowski, while fiercely supporting Marine Le Pen and Jair Bolsonaro alike. Dodik still has room, some freedom of maneuver, but if all hell breaks loose, it is always good to know there is a nearby country where he could find asylum.
Dodik’s friendship circle is limited, and his allies are either occupied or powerless to intervene. A major shift in US policy might alter this calculation, but for now, at least, they can do little more than offer him words and — in extremis — a way out of Bosnia, and perhaps a nice apartment overlooking the Danube.
Ferenc Németh is a Ph.D. candidate at Corvinus University of Budapest. He has previously conducted research on the Western Balkans in Toronto and Skopje, worked as a research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, and interned at EULEX Kosovo. His areas of expertise include the Western Balkans, EU enlargement, and regional security. Ferenc was a Denton Fellow at CEPA in 2024.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Cooperation and Competition
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