"Peace agreed upon," declared The Washington Times on September 28, 1938. By now, we should have learned: deals with predator states bent on conquest – whether Nazi Germany then or Russia today – don't buy peace; they invite war. In the last century, Europe didn't avert disaster; it sleepwalked straight into the deadliest conflict in humanity's history. 

Russia is interfering with elections in democracies all over the world, resorting to any means, from cyberattacks to direct voter bribery, from sharing disinformation and disrupting society to discrediting candidates who are “unacceptable” for the Russian government. Contrariwise, they support politicians or parties ready to cooperate with the Putin's regime.

We embraced a huge number of challenges that have become the norm, and we have been living in this threatening environment for a long time. Nevertheless, our attitude towards the State is evolving, and so does the State’s attitude towards the society, the people, and an individual.

Olga Aivazovska, Chair of the Board of Civil Network OPORA, took part in the closed expert discussion "Democratic Challenges and Opportunities for Ukraine" held in June in Kyiv. Experts discussed the following topics: parliamentary reform and the code of ethics; challenges and risks of parliamentary and presidential elections in the current conditions; the balance between decentralization and centralization of power in wartime; the importance of media pluralism (countering disinformation; strategic communication of authorities as a prerequisite for fair elections); social cohesion and involvement of vulnerable groups in reconstruction and decision-making processes; protection of human rights in times of war: countering pressure and attacks on activists and journalists; gender-based violence.

Why did official Tbilisi resort to adopting the scandalous foreign agents law before the parliamentary elections, and will the civil society representatives obey it? How does society react to steps that actually destroy Georgia's European perspective? And is the current government of Georgia afraid of sanctions from Western countries? Watch more in this issue of “Power of Choice”

In October 2022, the Kremlin launched what was then the most comprehensive bombing campaign of the war. For the next five months, waves of Russian missiles and drones struck Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure on an almost daily basis. The attacks aimed to break Ukraine’s resistance by making life as unbearable as possible for tens of millions of Ukrainian civilians.

The collapse of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last year due to Russia’s war brought the entire country to its knees. And while Ukraine was, for the most part, spared from widespread blackouts this winter, Russian forces are once again targeting critical infrastructure.

"The myth of peaceful coexistence is an entirely colonial perspective, and access to archives is crucial in dismantling it," explains Andriy Kohut, Director of the Sectoral Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). According to Kohut, Western academia has been influenced by the long-standing perception that in this part of the world, there was only Russia and its periphery, a view that has been constructed over centuries. "This is starting to change. But we need to institutionalize these ongoing discussions about decolonization and ensure that Ukraine's voice is represented at every level in any conversations about Ukraine," Kohut states. The discussion took place in an interview with Olha Aivazovska as part of the Civil Network OPORA's project, "The Power of Choice."

Had it not been for Russia’s full-scale war, Ukrainians would have engaged in a heated political season in the lead-up to the parliamentary elections on Oct. 29, as well as the presidential elections in March of the upcoming year.

Laws for voting abroad stipulate that Ukrainian citizens must travel in person to a polling station (located at an embassy or consulate) to cast their ballot on election day. Not only would this require many Ukrainians to travel hundreds of kilometers in some countries, but it would completely overwhelm the capacity of the polling stations to count them. As Aivazovska explained to Foreign Policy in an interview, diplomatic facilities “don’t have the human or financial resources for [holding v...

Broadening Political Perspective

The 15th annual meeting on the implementation of the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation (DoP) is taking place in the European Parliament in Brussels on December, 6-8. The event engages organizations acting in the field of international election observation. In particular, Olha Aivazovska, Chair of the Board of Civil Network OPORA, who also heads the Board of the Global Network of National Election Observers (GNDEM), is the speaker at the event. Below, we publish ...