While Ukraine advances in Russia, there is trouble at home

Stay up to date quickly with the important news from Central and Eastern Europe. This week's headlines include the news of Russia's encirclement in Ukraine by Pokrovsk.

Russia's war against Ukraine

While Ukraine invades Russia, it loses an important battle at home.

Faced with rapidly advancing Russian forces, authorities this week called on civilians in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk to evacuate immediately. Moscow, in turn, claimed to have repelled a Ukrainian attempt to infiltrate the border region around Bryansk.

Communities in and around Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine are being urged to flee within the next two weeks as Russian forces advance rapidly.

“Don't wait. It's not getting better, it's only getting worse. Go.” That was the stark warning from local official Yuri Tretiak, head of the military administration in the town of Myrnohrad, which is now less than 3 miles from the front line.

According to the Pokrovsk military administration, almost 59,000 people live in the entire municipality, which includes the cities of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad and 39 surrounding villages. About 600 to 700 people are evacuated every day, the administration said.

The evacuations come after Ukrainian forces said on Wednesday that Pokrovsk was now the “hottest” front of the war. “The situation in the Pokrovsk sector remains tense. Ukrainian troops have repelled 11 attacks, and fighting continues in four locations,” the Ukrainian forces said in their latest update.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces in the eastern region would be reinforced to repel a possible Russian advance.

Western suppliers should allow Ukraine to fire its powerful long-range weapons at targets in Russia, Josep Borrell said on Wednesday.

Borrell – who as EU foreign policy chief is considered the EU's top diplomat – called for “lifting restrictions on the use of capabilities against the Russian military involved in the aggression against Ukraine, in accordance with international law”.

This would “strengthen Ukrainian self-defense by depriving Russia of the shelter for its attacks” and would also save lives and advance peace efforts.

Borrell said the matter would be on the agenda of talks during the back-to-back meetings of EU foreign and defence ministers to be held in Brussels on August 29 and 30, which will also be attended by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

After his conversation with Kuleba, Borrell also said that the Ukrainian counteroffensive at Kursk had dealt a “serious blow” to Vladimir Putin’s war narrative.

Ukraine's parliament this week passed a law banning religious organizations with ties to Russia, paving the way for Kyiv to end the activities of the Moscow-linked Orthodox Church on its soil.

The Verkhovna Rada approved the law in the second and final reading on Tuesday. 265 MPs voted for and 29 against, said MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak.

Ukrainian politicians have long claimed that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) acts as an arm of the Russian Orthodox Church to undermine Ukraine and is complicit in Russia's all-out war.

Ukrainian officials particularly accuse the UOC-MP of working closely with the powerful Russian secret service FSB.

“The Russian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with faith – it is a tool of the secret services,” wrote Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, on Telegram.

More news from the region

The European Commission is committed to developing a strategic raw materials partnership with Serbia despite concerns over President Aleksandar Vučić's claims that Western powers are behind widespread protests against a planned lithium mine. The Commission remains “fully committed” to the partnership – the latest of over a dozen Brussels has signed to reduce dependence on China for access to the critical raw materials essential for electric car batteries and Europe's ongoing energy transition – trade spokeswoman Johanna Bernsel said on Tuesday.

In the meantime Bulgarian Prime Minister Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva told local media on Monday that she was under pressure to appoint certain ministers to her proposed cabinet. President Rumen Radev had earlier surprisingly rejected the proposal the same day. Due to the president's veto, which is an unprecedented move in itself, the new interim prime minister will have to form a new cabinet. This means that the next parliamentary elections in Bulgaria will have to be postponed from October 20 to a later date. They will be the country's seventh parliamentary elections in three years.

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has announced that he will run in the presidential election later this year, a move that could strain relations between the two largest parties in the ruling coalition. The 56-year-old party leader announced his candidacy on Tuesday in an audio recording he sent to his party members and obtained by news website G4Media. The decision to run follows pressure from his Social Democrats to run for a post the party has not filled for two decades. Ciolacu's move pits him against National Liberal Party leader Nicolae Ciuca, who has already announced his presidential candidacy.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani said this week that Kosovo is in consultations with the international community to open the main bridge in Mitrovica, which connects ethnic Albanian And Serbian communities. Osmani said in an interview with RFE/RL that the opening of the bridge, which has been a point of contention over fears it would exacerbate already high ethnic tensions, was a priority and could become a “symbol of normalization” of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The bridge divides the Albanian-majority southern part of the city from the Serb-majority northern part.

Georgian Authorities have yet to demonstrate that they are conducting effective investigations into a series of violent attacks on civil society and political activists in recent months, Human Rights Watch said this week. “If a pattern of harassment and intimidation of activists, independent media, and government critics goes unpunished, it risks emboldening malicious actors to escalate violence in the months leading up to Georgia's upcoming elections,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Georgia will hold crucial parliamentary elections in late October.

The imprisoned war criminal Radovan Karadžić is suing the British government for inhumane treatment – ​​because he is not allowed to have a laptop in his cell. The tyrant, called the Butcher of Bosniais demanding £50,000 for human rights abuses. He claims he was also banned from communicating in his native Serbian and denied the food he needs to treat his diabetes. Former Bosnian Serb leader Karadžić, 79, is in Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight after being convicted in 2019 of genocide against Croats and Muslims during the Balkan War.

Bookbot, a Czech Online platform for used books, announced this week a Series A funding round of four million euros at a valuation of over 20 million euros. The round was led by new investor Genesis Growth Equity Fund I with participation from existing shareholder Miton. Since its founding in 2019, Bookbot has had a rapidly developing success story that has made it the largest seller of used books in the Czech Republic. Bookbot expanded to Slovakia in 2022, to Austria in summer 2023 and to Germany in autumn 2023. The investment is intended to accelerate growth in the DACH market.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) this week approved a grant of US$17.5 million to improve women’s agricultural skills and improve food security in TajikistanThe Resilient Livelihoods and Empowerment of Rural Women project aims to improve the productivity of women-led farms, strengthen agricultural processing and storage facilities, and enhance support for vulnerable women in six districts of Khatlon, the country's most populous province and largest agricultural producing region. “ADB is investing in women as agents of change,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeny Zhukov.

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