This is prescient. Like most countries Hungary is sharply divided between a relatively western-looking, liberal, urbanized west and north, and a more inward-looking, nationalistic and under-developed south and east. Orbán built an electoral coalition of those who feared change and the modern world.

💥 "The hope is that if at one moment Russian people have to choose between the television and the refrigerator, the refrigerator will win." Read this great interview with Estonian Foreign Intelligence (EFIS) top analyst Andres Vosman.

And it all falls apart when you're a landlocked country. It's just not fair. All you want to do is collaborate with an aggressor power invading a neighboring country, when someone throws a wrench in the works like this. eualive.net/croatias-ref...

First of all, like all real leaders Zelensky has aged much in the past 4 years. It is natural that over time, as people suffer, some shine will come off his star. He has his faults but I think he has achieved more than most leaders do in office. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

I have mixed feelings about this. I follow some of these people and they're brave. A major problem is that since Navalny's murder, the various figures and factions of the Russian opposition have failed to create any sort of unified front that Putin should fear. neweasterneurope.eu/2026/02/16/b...

In some respects horrific, but pragmatic. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Institutional weakness, maybe, but opportunity? eualive.net/analysis-in-...

How are you sleeping tonight? Ukrainians have had to put up with this almost every night for 4 years, and as of this week longer than the Soviet Union had to endure World War II.

2 of 2 from a British tabloid. Vladimir Solovyov is the archetype of the 21st century; once a pro-democracy journalist and sharp critic of Putin, he is now Putin's loudest cheerleader and enjoys wealth and power for his efforts. Men like him rule today's world. www.the-express.com/news/world-n...

1 of 2 from a British tabloid, but some insight into Putin's gulags. And remember, the primary victims are Russians; going back to Tsarist times the gulag system was designed to oppress Russians first and foremost, with other ethnic groups and peoples a side note. www.the-express.com/news/world-n...

We once again live in a time when telling the truth is dangerous, and even a crime.

A short-term challenge for shipping and shorelines but ultimately, apparently, a positive thing.

Where do you go when you're losing more soldiers per month than you can recruit? You go abroad. Russia is aggressively recruiting from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Cuba, Nigeria and Senegal, and of course there are the North Korean troops. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

In case you were wondering what a world without nuclear proliferation controls looks like, this is it. What could possibly go wrong? Middle powers like Japan, South Korea, or Poland will build them. Every crisis is a potential nuclear war. This is the world the Cold War generation tried to prevent.

What's that refrain we keep hearing? Oh, that's right: "Ukraine can't win this war." kyivindependent.com/ukraine-dest...

Someone in our family once worked at Książ Castle, near Wrocław in southwestern Poland. There have long been legends of a fabled buried Nazi gold train in the tunnels/mines beneath the castle. Articles about some new tunnel pop up every few months but so far -- no gold. www.cnn.com/travel/ksiaz...

This is from the same Russian TV show that has Solovyov as a host. It regularly -- meaning, almost daily -- calls for the complete annihilation of Ukrainians, Western Europeans, Americans, and others through war, nuclear war, etc. I don't know of any state-sanctioned TV show that is more extreme.

Gabor Boritt passed away this week. He survived the Holocaust, then managed to escape communist Hungary in 1956 and became a well-known expert on Lincoln at Gettysburg College. He funneled the painful experiences of his life into his studies of US history. thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/15/g...

Navalny revealed to average Russians that Putin lives in palaces. (<<< Note plural.) His defense minister, Shoigu, earned about $250,000 USD/year but lived in an $18 million palace. Russians who support Putin are fighting for their own re-enserfment. euromaidanpress.com/2026/02/14/p...

In relative terms, life in Bulgaria is becoming expensive. Local nationalists blame the Euro and EU, but the real issue is inefficiency (read: corruption) in the Bulgarian economy: www.novinite.com/articles/236...

Today's crop of nationalists only think in the short-term when it comes to finances. Fico only cares about padding his pockets today. What happens to Slovaks a generation from now (as a result of his policies) is their problem, not his: visegradinsight.eu/how-rent-see...

An excellent overview of the recent shutdown of Starlink satellite access for the Russian military, from military analyst Perun. The impact for Russia was immediately devastating on the battlefield: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMvT...

This seems funny but it is tragic. On a small island in the middle of Lake Prespa (which spans North Macedonia, Greece and Albania) male tortoises vastly outnumber females -- leading to so much sexual aggression that the females are committing suicide. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

If you're a corrupt dictator-wannabe and after 16 years, even the most ardent extremists realize you're a scam, you can rig elections but also, having strong, similar-minded friends helps. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I always just assumed he was beaten to death by Putin's thugs but apparently they didn't want to get their hands too dirty so they used poison. abcnews.com/Internationa...

To be clear, the problem is not Russian politics, it is Putin who has painted himself into a corner. His own intransigence and incompetence have imprisoned him, and the rest of the world along with him. Thousands have died because of this fool. www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrain...

A good exploration of where the Russian economy is likely headed in 2026, with Alex Gabuev. Just imagine if it didn't have this albatross of a pointless war dragging it down like a blackhole that daily eats massive volumes of lives, money, and resources... carnegieendowment.org/podcasts/car...

The truth is, when you die in Russia, there are a whole list of potential causes -- some natural but many very far from natural, and often involving the state -- and so it is best not to ask questions. platformraam.nl/artikelen/29...

A Dutch perspective on why Ukraine has changed its mind about Tsikhanouskaya and the Belarussian opposition (which just recently relocated from Vilnius to Warsaw). platformraam.nl/uit-andere-m...

This is worth a watch. The linked video is in Hungarian but with English subtitles. Once in power, Orbán argued that liberal democracy was dead, that "managed democracy" (like Russia or China) was the future. The subtext was that wannabe-dictators like Orbán hate the accountability of democracy.

Suwałki is the Polish city smack between Russian Kaliningrad and Belarus. The Polish-Lithuanian border near Suwałki has caused a lot of stress for NATO but I also see a lot of hand-wringing in Moscow over losing Kaliningrad quickly in any war. nationalinterest.org/feature/how-...

I believe that there will come a day in the not-so-distant future when Ukraine will leave Russia economically in the dust -- as much because of Ukrainian innovation spurred by this war as backwards-looking Putinism. Russia will be like Libya: a commodity exporter: voxukraine.org/en/a-growth-...

Thoughts on European security. A quote: "We shouldn’t forget that before the European Union was founded, France and Germany went to war three times over the course of seventy years and took the rest of Europe into war with them." I made this argument in my book. www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

In 30 years in a peaceful and prosperous Ukraine, someone will ask an older person: "Why do we have all our utilities buried?" kyivindependent.com/ukraine-move...

Bulgaria has its own Dyatlov Pass-style mystery: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

Prime Minister Robert Fico undermines democracy in Slovakia. The odd thing is that he is a leftwing populist, not rightwing -- though he has found common cause with anti-Western rightwing nationalist authoritarian-wannabes like Orbán in Hungary and Vučić in Serbia. www.politico.eu/article/comm...

These kinds of reports keep streaming in from credible intelligence agencies or private institutes. Putin is bleeding Russia dry. kyivindependent.com/putin-has-al...

Lavrov is complaining that others aren't doing enough to reward Russian aggression. Geopolitics sure is complicated.

Rapprochement between Ukraine and Belarussian opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya: newsukraine.rbc.ua/interview/be...

The Holocaust is a difficult subject for every European country. France and Norway have made painful self-reflections in recent years. Poland has struggled. The Dutch, too, have peered into the abyss recently. The USSR simply portrayed it as a Western problem. newsukraine.rbc.ua/interview/ho...

Putin believes Russia can absorb millions of losses -- the Soviet Union did in WW II -- but in 1941 the USSR was invaded whereas in 2022, Russia is the invader. There are limits to what modern Russia will accept. Putin knows this which is why he hides the numbers. newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/putin-s...

In other words, crank up the sanctions and bring the pain to Putin's world if you really want this war to end. Anything short of that will only bring short reprieves, like Munich, 1938. neweasterneurope.eu/2026/02/09/r...

Democracy is, at its core, about the rule of law and institutions. Weaker institutions allow corrupt people to expand their power. It's sadly that simple. Eastern Europe is at a pivotal moment. www.transparency.org/en/press/cor...

This article compares the wartime economies of Russia and Ukraine to Israel and Iran, and finds that Russia has done a decent job of maintaining stability by suppressing inflation -- but at a longer term cost that is damaging Russia's economic future. And all to keep one deranged man in power.

In the 17th century the Pope declared Poland "Antemurale Christianitatius" (Bulwark of Christianity) for defeating an invading Ottoman army. Ukraine is playing a similar role in many respects today, bringing wisdom about modern warfare for the West. www.businessinsider.com/drone-traini...

Every day.

Honoring those who have sacrificed for others.

Relentless Russian attacks against utilities = war crimes, at least in the postwar world created by those who had endured 2 World Wars. In Putin's world, the kind of suffering his mother almost died from in Leningrad are fine to inflict on other people. www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

Vladyslav Heraskevych at the 2026 Olympics wearing a helmet with photographs of Ukrainian athletes who had been killed by the russian war. “Some of them were my friends,” he said. 💔

British YouTuber LindyBeige visits Lviv, Ukraine. A lot of the historical elements he mentioned are also mentioned in my book. <Shameless plug> www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9V4...