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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 13h

Mindless, pointless, and constant disruption. This is what Putin and his kind offer the world. abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

Estonia closes road through Russian territory due to presence of Russian troops

Estonia has temporarily closed a road that passes through Russian territory after reports of Russian soldiers standing there

abcnews.go.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

This is the latest Orbán scandal.

EUwatch 🇪🇺 @euwatch.live · 2d

With allies like this, who needs enemies? How Orbán’s intelligence network infiltrated the EU

In the mid-2010s, Brussels – long known as Europe’s espionage capital – was home to ...

eualive.net

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

Someone worth reading.

Dejan Pantic @serbianism.com · 2d

Recommended. Srdja Popović was one of the leaders of the Serbian student and civic movement Otpor that brought down the murderous autocratic rule of Slobodan Milošević.

Stefan E. Jones @stefanejones.bsky.social · 3d

There's a whole book on using mockery to defeat autocrats:

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

Free download: d119vjm4apzmdm.cloudfront.net/open-access/...

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has dampened investor enthusiasm for Eastern Europe but the reality is that many economies in the region are transitioning from being developing to developed -- and that requires different kinds of approaches and policies. uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/boom-sl...

From boom to slowdown: Central and Eastern Europe faces strain

Economists at the Warsaw School of Economics examined the fate of the 11 Central and Eastern European countries that joined the European Union after 2004. The analysis shows that each of these countri...

uk.finance.yahoo.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

There are a few dictators (or dictator-wannabees) who cling to Putin because there's nowhere else to go but the reality is that Russia is a 2nd-rate power in 2025, dependent on China and with little sway in the world. While the US and China spar over the future of AI and chips, Putin talks oil.

The Moscow Times @themoscowtimes.com · 2d

Major regional powers like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates did not confirm their participation, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.

Moscow Postpones Arab Summit Amid Reports of Low Interest - The Moscow Times

The Kremlin announced Thursday that it had postponed the planned Russia-Arab summit in Moscow after President Vladimir Putin and his Iraqi counterpart agreed that many Arab leaders would be unable to ...

www.themoscowtimes.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

This story is making the rounds. Putin has a habit of lying, then later admitting to deeds, like the Russian army's involvement in seizing Crimea in 2014. In this case he is likely trying to regain lost diplomatic ground in the Caucasus. www.wsj.com/world/russia...

Putin Admits Russia’s Role in Downing Azerbaijani Passenger Jet

The incident last year further eroded Moscow’s influence across the former Soviet states.

www.wsj.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

Ailing Russian expat Vlad Vexler (living/teaching in London) explains Putin's mental state and how the West mis-read him in the early 2000s. This is in line with the portrait many are painting of him but for me, Putin's biggest flaw is his utter lack of compassion. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OZn...

Russia’s Political System Props Up a Fading Putin

YouTube video by Vlad Vexler Chat

www.youtube.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

A terrifying analysis. When in late 1941 Japan attacked the U.S., days later Hitler declared war on the U.S., apparently believing it was weak (and racially diluted) and so would be an easy push-over. Is Putin about to make the same mistake with Europe? carnegieendowment.org/russia-euras...

By Sending Drones Into NATO States, Russia Is Repeating the Mistakes of 2022

There’s no guarantee that Russia won’t repeat the mistake it made in 2022. Back then, the Kremlin was counting on Ukraine to prove weak and futile. Now it is counting on NATO to be weak, divided, and ...

carnegieendowment.org

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 2d

This, sadly, is a common theme nowadays as nationalist regimes push their central banks to lower rates to artificially prop up economic growth. The problem is (as the 20th century Keynes-Hayek debates revealed) is that artificial credit also creates recessions. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Hungary Central Bank Pushes Back on Rate Cuts After Forint Sinks

Hungary’s central bank pushed back against growing pressure from Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government to cut interest rates, which caused the biggest slide in the forint in more than seven months ...

www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Tomek Jankowski

24Hours Ukraine @24hoursukraine.bsky.social · 3d

🇺🇦💔Pokrovsk — once home to over 60,000 people. Now reduced to ruins. This is what Russia has done.

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 3d

Make love not war! Unless it brings jobs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/w...

This Town Doesn’t Like Rearmament. But It’s Ready to Build Tanks.

www.nytimes.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 3d

Some thoughts on the return of Babiš in Czechia. www.gmfus.org/news/czechia...

Czechia Is No Hungary

www.gmfus.org

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 3d

A Hungarian wins the Nobel Prize for literature, László Krasznahorkai: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7P...

First reactions | László Krasznahorkai, Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 | Telephone interview

YouTube video by Nobel Prize

www.youtube.com

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 4d

This is what Merkel doesn't understand about Putin. In his eyes, merely being Ukrainian is a crime and one your life can be destroyed for. It is the same mentality that drove both Hitler's and Stalin's crimes during the war. (And Putin celebrates Stalin's crimes.) platformraam.nl/artikelen/29...

Thousands of Ukrainian civilians held without trial by Russia

Thousands of Ukrainians are trapped in Russian 'temporary detention centers' awaiting deportation to Ukraine. Among them are long-term Russian...

platformraam.nl

1

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 4d

Ya think? When solving a problem, Step 1 is identifying the source of the problem. Putin wants an empire and will accept nothing less -- despite the reality Russia is too weak to create the empire Putin claims it deserves. Instead, he just sabotages others. www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/08/b...

Bill Browder: It’s Time to Make Putin Pay for His War - The Moscow Times

Once a leading investor in Russian markets, U.S.-born British financier Bill Browder has been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin since the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in a Russian prison in...

www.themoscowtimes.com

1

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 4d

Poland has transformed itself radically since the 1980s, though this involved a a lot of pain in the 1990s. But the danger now is that as nationalist agendas around the world come to dominate (including in Poland itself), Poland's growth model may be undermined: english.elpais.com/economy-and-...

Poland: From communist rule to Eastern Europe’s ‘tiger’

The Polish economy is growing rapidly, supported by domestic consumption and the use of European Union funds, which had been frozen under the previous far-right government

english.elpais.com

1

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 5d

Pan-Turkism lives! Erdoğan tries to build an ancestral bloc of countries through cultural relations. The Soviets repeatedly tinkered with Turkic language alphabets in the 20th century like Uzbek and Tartar, imposing the Roman/Latin, then Russian Cyrillic alphabets on them.

EUwatch 🇪🇺 @euwatch.live · 5d

Erdoğan advocates for unified Turkic alphabet at OTS summit

At the 12th Summit of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Gabala, Azerbaijan, Turkish ...

eualive.net

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 5d

After severe flooding in Bulgaria last week, the unsettled weather pattern continues. www.romania-insider.com/red-code-hea...

Meteorologists expand red code warning for heavy rain to include Bucharest, four counties

The National Meteorological Administration (ANM) has expanded its red weather alert for heavy rain to cover Bucharest and four additional counties in the country’s south, warning of torrential downpou...

www.romania-insider.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 5d

This is like saying a serial killer's 6th victim should have negotiated better, and deserved their fate.

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 5d

Russia had already invaded eastern Ukraine, seized Crimea, invaded Georgia and seized Abkhazia and North Ossetia, and routinely threatened most Eastern European states -- and Merkel thinks Polish and Baltic reluctance to talk with Putin provoked the Ukraine invasion? tvpworld.com/89326663/sik...

Sikorski addresses Merkel’s claim that Warsaw rejected 2021 EU-Russia talks

Sikorski said the comments are “as true” as the idea that no EU countries opposed Nord Stream.

tvpworld.com

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Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 5d

It has always baffled me the number of people who think that when studying European history, they only need learn about France, Spain, Italy, Britain, and Germany, maybe Russia -- and that about covers it. www.fpri.org/article/2025...

The State of Baltic Studies - Foreign Policy Research Institute

The following conversation, as featured on the Baltic Ways podcast, has been edited for clarity.

www.fpri.org

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 7d

Christopher Lasch's 1990s book "Revolt of the Elites" comes to mind. Why do people think that billionaires have their best interests at heart? www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

Populist billionaire Andrej Babis’s party set to win Czech election

With most votes tallied, Babis’s ANO party is ahead, but it appears set to fall short of a majority in parliament.

www.aljazeera.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 7d

Some weather ugliness in Bulgaria: www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

Bulgaria: Cars swept away as floods hit country's south-east

At least three people, including two rescue workers, have been killed in the country's south-east

www.bbc.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 7d

Memories... Dictators everywhere live in fear of their Mussolini moment, ending up like he did, his battered corpse hanging upside down at a gas station in Milan, the subject of derision and abuse by an angry mob -- his former subjects. At least Milošević hid for some years before prison.

Dejan Pantic @serbianism.com · 7d

1. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the overthrow of the rule of murderous, kleptocratic far-right political parties led by Slobodan Milošević that brought ruin to former Yugoslavia during a series of wars, after an election victory of the DOS coalition, supported by Otpor! civic movement. ⬇️

5. oktobar 2. deo - 'AJDE DA ZAPALIMO

YouTube video by Montage Belgrade

www.youtube.com

Tomek Jankowski @tomekjankowski.bsky.social · 7d

An oddity about Putin is that he doesn't believe people have agency. He seems to believe that if they reject him, it must be because some foreign power is manipulating them. He seems to think only a handful of people (men) around the world really have brains. The rest just follow mindlessly.

Ukrainska Pravda 🇺🇦 @pravda.ua · 7d

🇪🇺 EU foreign policy chief: Russia masking its failed summer offensive with terror attacks on civilians

EU foreign policy chief: Russia masking its failed summer offensive with terror attacks on civilians

www.pravda.com.ua