A Belarusian refugee discovered hanging in a Polish jail
Kiryl Kieturka was 16 in 2020, when he took half within the post-election demonstrations in Belarus. In 2022, when he was 18, the authorities knocked on his door. After spending three months in detention in Grodno, the younger man was sentenced to 2 and a half years’ home arrest underneath shut police surveillance, together with digital monitoring.
When he was as a result of be despatched to jail after serving a yr of his sentence, Kiryl fled to Poland. Within the spring of 2023, he informed the Belarusian media outlet Most – which specialises in migration – about his participation within the protests, his expertise in jail and his escape. In October, Kiryl was reported lacking. He was later discovered hanged in a jail in Warsaw.
Kiryl’s demise has shocked your entire Belarusian diaspora dwelling in Poland, and has additionally aroused many suspicions. Kiryl was allegedly arrested for participating in a phone fraud aimed toward acquiring financial institution particulars. Nevertheless, no additional details about his alleged involvement is obtainable. Following the sturdy response from Belarusians dwelling in Poland, the courts have determined to open an investigation into this obvious suicide.
The story is a reminder of the troublesome state of affairs confronted by refugees and migrants in Poland. Even older individuals with capital, financial savings or an excellent job battle to deal with the hardships that emigration can entail. The dearth of a migration coverage in Poland is changing into an more and more urgent drawback, however the brand new authorities doesn’t appear decided to make it a precedence. The coalition settlement, wherein no person even bothers to the touch on the subject, is proof of this.
Georgia : Russian authorities, pro-European society
Georgian society is now dominated by pro-European sentiment. The nation may have discovered itself in the identical state of affairs as Ukraine and Moldova (with its utility for European Union membership validated, editor’s word), have been it not for the ruling Georgian Dream (KO-DS) – a celebration with pronounced pro-Russian overtones, based by the Kremlin-linked oligarch Bidzina Ivanichvili.
The President of the European Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, identified that the nation nonetheless needed to full numerous reforms essential for European integration. The Georgians are delighted, however because the Georgian media outlet Sova factors out, the European Fee’s resolution is above all geopolitical, and primarily based on a calculation of revenue and loss.
If Georgia had not been granted candidate nation standing, it will have lagged behind Ukraine and Moldova not by one however by two levels within the accession course of. It’s due to this fact higher to encourage the nation relatively than sideline it. In any other case, Georgian society will likely be cruelly disillusioned, and Georgia will likely be pushed even deeper into the arms of Putin.
Moldova : escaping the Russian whip
Moldova has carried out a monumental job of reforming the nation and cleaning its political system of Russian affect, embodied by the oligarch Ilan Shor and former president Igor Dodon.
The latter has expressed scepticism in the direction of the choice of the European Fee, claiming that Moldova had up to now seen no profit from drawing nearer to the EU. Thankfully, the dedication of pro-European Moldovan society and Moldovan authorities, represented on the worldwide stage by President Maia Sandu, supplies good purpose to hope that the nation won’t let this chance go to waste. Sandu has introduced that Moldova will turn out to be an EU member by 2030.
Russia domesticates the warfare
Within the spring of 2022, Sasha Skotchilenko, a Russian artist dwelling in Saint Petersburg, wished to inform Russians the reality concerning the warfare in Ukraine. Or not less than, to attempt.
In a Perekrestok grocery store (a Russian grocery store chain, editor’s word), the artist changed the costs of merchandise with labels revealing details about the state of affairs in Ukraine. Behind clear plastic, we may learn, for instance, ”The Russian military bombed an artwork college in Mariupol. Round 400 individuals have been sheltering there to flee bombardment”.
A pensioner observed these ”new costs” and contacted the police. The authorities took motion on the premise of a regulation in opposition to spreading ”false data” concerning the Russian military. The artist was discovered and arrested, and has been in custody since 11 April 2022. The prosecutor requested eight years’ imprisonment for Skotchilenko. On 16 November the court docket introduced a sentence of seven years.
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In her closing assertion – most likely the one kind of uncensored speech in Russia as we speak – Skotchilenko says that regardless of the stress she has confronted over the previous yr, she doesn’t recognise her guilt.
Impartial Russian media outlet Bumaga interviewed the 76-year-old lady who reported Skotchilenko. She claims to be pleased with her actions. Her message for critics of the regime and the warfare is easy: ”When you don’t love Russia, go away!” Russia has domesticated the warfare and settled down with it. Putin’s subsequent elections will happen in early spring and his marketing campaign – which has not but formally begun – is anticipated to maintain its distance from the subject of warfare.
One other winter of warfare for Ukraine: Russia is making ready to inflict hell on the nation… as is Hungary
This yr, Russia will likely be focusing on Ukrainian electrical and thermal energy stations so as to deprive the inhabitants of heating and electrical energy. On the similar time, political tensions are rising between President Zelensky’s workplace and the army command over the the query of whether or not elections be held in wartime. The opportunity of Hungary blocking Ukraine’s accession to the European Union can also be a trigger for concern, explains Serhii Sydorenko in European Pravda. Earlier than the European Council summit as a result of happen in mid-December which ought to give the inexperienced gentle for the beginning of accession talks, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán needs to organise new ”nationwide consultations” on Ukraine’s entry into the EU.
Viktor Orbán goals to current the outcomes of those consultations to the summit. In response to rumours, the query put to the inhabitants might be formulated in such a approach as to recommend that Ukraine’s accession to the EU would result in an extension of the warfare to the continent, and due to this fact to Hungarian houses.
The actual query considerations Orbán’s actual intentions behind this transfer. Does he need to blackmail the opposite EU members and are available out of negotiations with some form of benefit? Is that this a part of his marketing campaign forward of the subsequent European Parliament elections? Or maybe Orbán merely has no alternative however to pursue – by the use of gratitude – the pursuits of the Kremlin?
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