Putin has 3 famous allies in Europe: The most powerful is Viktor Orban in Hungary, followed by Robert Fico in Slovakia. The most loyal of all though is Milorad Dodik, a Serb from Bosnia. He has completely tied his political fate to Putin. But his days in power might be over.⬇️ Unlike Putin, Dodik is not a war criminal. There are no records involving him in crimes in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. But after a “pro-western” beginning, he has made a political business out of associating with Serbian war criminals Karadzic and Mladic.
reuters.com/world/europe/b…

War, Croats, Church: What the mega-concert of the far right and Croatian nationalist singer Marko Perković in Zagreb reveals about today’s Croatia. Some remarks based on an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Marko Perković, stage name Thompson, gave a concert in Zagreb on Saturday that—depending on the source—was attended by between 300,000 and 405,000 people. Numerically, it was the largest concert in Croatian history and one of the largest in European history.

On the Greater Serbian nationalist mobilization within the ranks of Serbian students protesting against Serbia´s autocratic president Aleksandar Vučić. Some comments on a double dead end, based on an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: The recent climax of the months-long protests against the rule of Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia on June 28 brought some 140,000 people on the streets in Belgrade who demanded new elections.

After the elections in 2024, Romania finally has a new government. Today (June 24th), Ilie Bolojan begins his job as new Prime Minister. A key power broker in the coalition talks was a German: Dominic Fritz, who has risen to become one of Romania’s most influential politicians.⬇️ Fritz was born in 1983 in the town of Lörrach in the Black Forest and only came to Romania as an adult. In 2019, he moved to Timișoara (German: Temeswar). Just a year later, he was elected mayor there. romania-insider.com/dominic-fritz-…

How Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, in January 1991, invited Albanian leaders from Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Preševo to Croatia to discuss whether they could attack Serbia — and how the Albanians, after two days of deliberations near Zagreb, wisely declined. ⬇️ A while ago, I spent some days in Kosovo collecting material for a story in FAZ. Veton Surroi spontaneously invited me to his podcast, to which I agreed mainly because he told me I would get to ask him questions as well. I was interested in one historical topic specifically:

Today is TikTok and Telegram day in Romania – or, as the older folks among us might call it: election day. Some remarks about how social media influenced the last (later annulled) presidential election in Romania - and how they are still cruial (and maybe dangerous) now. Met Iulia Roșu (@julieRosu) from the newly founded Romanian investigative portal “Snoop“ in Bucharest, who was part of a team uncovering amazing details about how election scams are organized in TikTok. “Snoop” has a short, but remarkble history.

Have the protesting students in Serbia actually deserved the change they demand? On the arrogance of non-partisanship and the reasons for the failure of many protest movements around the world, based on a text in „Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung:" Recently, a group of cyclists from Serbia arrived in Strasbourg after a tour of +1,300 kilometers through half a dozen countries. With their journey to the main seat of the European Parliament, they wanted to draw attention to the situation in Serbia.
balkaninsight.com/2025/04/16/ser…

If you can´t make it there, you won´t make it anywhere: About Frank Sinatra and the failed German and European policy towards the Balkans. In the most famous version of the most famous song about the most famous city in the world, Frank Sinatra famously sings about New York: "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere."

Are the justice systems of European states being hijacked by the USA? The case of the Tate brothers in Romania, who were allowed to leave the country under U.S. pressure, suggests this might be the case. Spoke to German-born Romanian politician Dominic Fritz about this. Background: Fritz was born and grew up in Germany, but moved to Romania in 2019, where he was elected mayor of Timișoara, the country’s third-largest city. He was re-elected in 2024. He is also the first vice chairman of the liberal opposition party Save Romania Union (USR).

„NATO did the wrong thing in the Kosovo war, because it bombed Christian Serbs to help Muslim Albanians, whereas it should have been the other way around.“ In a nutshell, this is what the far right in Europe or Alt-Right in the US say about NATO bombing Serbia in 1999. While this narrative is wrong in many ways (it is a cliché that the Yugoslav wars of dissolution were primarily about religion) in the case of Kosovo, there is another aspect that does not fit into this perspective:

The protesting students in Serbia receive a lot of attention and support, including from world famous pop icons such as Madonna or Yanis Varoufakis. However, one segment of Serbian society has received little attention: pensioners.

https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1886827293504389314

As in all of Europe´s aging states, the age cohort of 60+ is of particular numerical and political relevance in Serbia. They make up nearly 30% of the population, 36% of eligible voters, and even 40% of those who actually do go out and vote regularly.

The protest movement in Serbia is remarkably leaderless. Serbian students are the driving force behind the protests, but there is not a single name that could be clearly associated with leading the protests. A thread on Serbia. ⬇️ The leaderlessnes of the protests so far makes it impossible for the government's media to pursue their usual tactics. In recent years, whenever a rival emerged who seemed to even remotely threaten the power of Serbian president Vučić, the script was always the same:

Russia-bashing is en vogue, and for good reasons: Russia is a terror and mafia state, capable of any evil. However, not everything that goes wrong in the Western world can be blamed on Russia. Take the example of Romania. In Romania, a highly corrupt local elite of so-called National Liberals, self-proclaimed Social Democrats and a president desperately looking for a new post, attempted to manipulate the presidential election. When their gamble failed, the perpetrators cried: "Russia is to blame!"

Romania: Supported by a compliant judiciary, the power triangle of outgoing President Klaus Iohannis, the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) attempts to undermine the results of a democratic election because they disapprove of the outcome. One of the narratives this triangle relies on: “It’s all Russia’s fault.” Indeed, there should be a thorough investigation into how Călin Georgescu, the winner of the first round of the Romanian presidential election, financed his evidently very successful TikTok campaign.

Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, German money, Russian gas, and Ukraine - a (very long) thread based on Angela Merkel's memoirs and my article on this topic today in Frankfurter Allgemeine/FAZ: Germany's Russia policy in recent decades was hypocritical and dishonest. In her memoirs, Angela Merkel now claims that other actors also had their hypocritical and dishonest moments – especially Poland, Ukraine, and the USA.

Some remarks on Moldova, where pro-European president Maia Sandu might lose power in the elections on Nov. 3rd. True, Russia has influenced the elections in an unprecedented way – but that is only one side of the story. Mediocre governance and broken promises are the other. Russian involvement – not only, but mainly via the fugitive criminal oligarch Ilan Șor – was unprecedented. Colleagues from the investigative paper (yes, there is a print version) Ziarul de Gardă managed to infiltrate the network and describe how it works:
moldovamatters.substack.com/p/election-upd…

"Many (of you) Germans are great at drawing exactly the wrong lessons from the Holocaust - the ones that are most convenient for you and that cost you nothing."

This is a story not only, but also, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Hamas terror of October 7. ⬇️ A while ago I traveled to the Polish city of Wrocław, to attend a bar mitzvah to which I was invited. It was the first bar mitzvah in my life, I was really looking forward to this event - but it turned out completely different than I expected.

Deutschland will „europäische Lösungen“ in der Migrationspolitik & kritisiert asylpolitische Alleingänge, die es aber ständig selbst unternimmt. Zum wachsenden Unmut der EU-Partner. Ein Beispiel: Der deutsche Sonderweg beim Umgang mit abgelehnten Asylbewerbern. (Ja, ein 🧵) Das gibt es in dieser Form in keinem anderen EU-Staat: Deutschland zahlt selbst letztinstanzlich abgelehnten Asylbewerbern, die das Land eigentlich verlassen müssten und ausreisefähig sind, Sozialleistungen. Das ist sozusagen eine Prämie für den Rechtsbruch des Dableibens.

Talked to several former and current German ambassadors about why German diplomacy in general and the Auswärtige Amt in particular must prepare for war – and support the German defense industry much more than in the past. A thread. Double standards still prevail in 🇩🇪 when it comes to questions about war and peace. Of course, Germans are for peace. But please without weapons! And for free. In public, Germans want their perfect world. The dogs of war must stay outside.

There is currently a struggle in Europe over whether Europe's youngest state (Kosovo, founded in 2008) should be allowed to join the oldest club of European democracies (Council of Europe, CoE, founded in 1949). It is also a struggle about European credibility. 🧵⬇️ Although France and Germany do not decide on the issue alone, they play a central role in the decision. That is why Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic recently visited Paris to agitate against Kosovo's membership.
rferl.org/a/vucic-macron…

Belgrade is Europe's largest city without a subway. Unfortunately, it is also Europe's largest city without a wastewater treatment plant and a proper sewage system. In Belgrade, the feces of 1.7 million people and all kinds of industrial effluents reach the Danube untreated. 🧵⬇️ In April 2022, the German Andreas Fath started an experiment. He wanted to swim down the Danube, (almost) from the source in Germany to the mouth in Romania. 2857 kilometers. (Apart from the first few kilometers, as there the Danube is too shallow for swimming).