Russia’s playbook in Georgia and Moldova

This week Mark Leonard is joined by Nevada Joan Lee, a policy fellow in ECFR’s US programme, and Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together they discuss what the imminent midterms mean for Ameri ...  Show more

This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Andrew Small, head of ECFR’s Asia programme, to discuss how Chinese industrial overcapacity is threatening European deindustrialisation—and what Europe can do about it.Over the summer, Europe’s approach to China shifted markedly. At the June 2026 ...  Show more

A vote that was supposed to be a slam dunk in favor of the EU turned into a nail-biter: barely 50 percent of Moldovans backed the country’s accession ambitions in last week’s referendum. Does a massive Russian interference campaign of vote-buying and lies explain the result — or ...  Show more

Ursula von der Leyen made a promise this week: if she secures another term as president of the European Commission, she will prioritize beefing up the EU's defenses against malicious disinformation from Moscow. It's a top-of-agenda issue for many in Brussels and across the bloc, ...  Show more

A small pro-Russian political party is leading anti-government protests in the former Soviet state amid warnings from Ukraine and Moldovan security services that Russia is plotting to overthrow the country’s pro-EU government. Could this be part of Vladimir Putin’s grand plan? Th ...  Show more