Ukraine makes surprise incursion into Russia

Catch up quickly with the stories from Central and Eastern Europe that matter, this week led by news of Ukraine’s surprise advance inside Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia’s war on Ukraine

Ukrainian forces including armoured vehicles made confirmed advances of up to 10km into Russia’s Kursk oblast this week, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

“The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk oblast indicate that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold,” the US-based thinktank said in its Wednesday evening update.

“Russian insider source and several other Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces fought for and seized the Sudzha checkpoint and the Sudzha gas distribution station.” ISW cited geolocated footage and satellite imagery, and said the Ukrainians had taken dozens of prisoners of war.

While Ukrainian officials have said very little about the offensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attack, one of the largest since the Russian president launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was a “major provocation”.

On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have downed six drones and five missiles over the Kursk region and 14 drones in the Belgorod region.

Nuclear power generation currently covers up to 60 per cent of the Ukraine’s electricity consumption, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Thursday.

“Everyone understands that nuclear power is needed. Everyone understands that thanks to nuclear power, the whole country has been living without electricity supply restrictions for 10 days now,” Halushchenko said.

Following several large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, state-owned energy operator Ukrenergo was forced to introduce rolling blackouts across Ukraine in May, intensifying them in July due to an abnormal heat wave.

The Energy Ministry expects that Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, will soon consider a draft law on completing two power units at Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Station, which will add 2.2 GW of capacity to the Ukrainian power grid.

In early July, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated the losses of the Ukrainian energy sector due to Russian strikes at 56.5 billion US dollars.

Other news from the region

Bulgaria is heading for its seventh parliamentary election in three years after the last of three political parties tapped by President Rumen Radev to form a coalition government failed due to lack of support. The Balkan country has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-corruption protests in 2020 helped topple a coalition led by the centre-right populist GERB party. The ITN party, which was tasked with forming a new government by Radev a week ago, returned its mandate on Monday. In talks with other parties, it was unable to persuade a majority of MPs to support the formation of a government.

Unable to form a government, Bulgaria’s parliament did this week pass changes to its education law, widening its scope to ban LGBT+ “propaganda” in schools in what rights groups slammed as discriminatory. The amendment to the law—proposed by the country’s pro-Russian Revival party—passed by a large majority, and bans the “propaganda, promotion or incitement in any way, directly or indirectly, in the education system of ideas and views related to non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity other than the biological one”.

Fears of ethnically charged strife flared up in the Balkans this week as Kosovo dramatically intensified its pressure on tens of thousands of local Serbs to abandon aspects of daily life tied to Serbia, shutting post offices used by Serbs and preparing a controversial reopening of a bridge separating ethnic Serb and Albanian communities. Tensions between Kosovo’s government and the minority Serbs are a near-constant problem in Kosovo, but the rapid-fire pace of Pristina’s current clampdown could threaten to drag it toward confrontation with neighbouring Serbia.

Romania’s Ministry of Energy this week approved a Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme which seeks to attract 5GW of solar PV and wind capacity by the end of 2025. Originally expected to be launched last year, the first round of the CfD will instead happen later this year, while the second round will take place in the third quarter of 2025. For the first round of the CfD scheme, Romania will tender 500MW of solar PV, instead of the initially planned 1GW. The second CfD auction will instead seek 2GW of solar PV capacity. The tender seeks projects with a solar PV capacity equal to or greater than 5MW.

Romania also this week unexpectedly cut borrowing costs for a second consecutive meeting as a slowdown in inflation outweighed risks from a global market rout and a ballooning budget deficit. The National Bank of Romania lowered the benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 6.5 per cent on Wednesday. A worldwide market selloff on Monday didn’t deter policymakers from continued monetary easing, with rate-setters focusing on a slowdown in annual inflation to 4.9 per cent in June, the lowest level since 2021.

The first Polish company to produce cultured meat—which is grown in a laboratory from animal cells without the need to raise and kill livestock—has received a two million euros grant from a state agency to support and expand its work. LabFarm, which this year presented a prototype of its chicken meatball, claims to produce “clean, genuine meat” that is “also safer [than traditional sources] because it is free of antibiotics and contaminants.” The firm says that the only difference is that the meat is grown outside the body of an animal, “which does not have to sacrifice its life, but only lends us a few of its cells.”

The European Union this week approved 1.2 billion euros in additional funding within the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) to upgrade the region’s railway infrastructure and water management. The money is intended primarily for a railway system upgrade to raise train speeds in Serbia and for water management and necessary infrastructure development in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, according to the WBIF website. The EU has so far approved 17.5 billion euros worth of programmes for the Western Balkans, including 5.4 billion euros in grants.

Thousands of Tajiks were deported from Russia in the first half of the year, with the exodus accelerating after authorities began carrying out sweeping checks of immigrants in the aftermath of a March attack by gunmen—four of whom are suspects from Tajikistan—on a concert hall near Moscow that killed 144 people. Tajik Labour, Migration, and Employment Minister Gulnora Hasanzoda said on Tuesday that Russia had deported more than 17,000 Tajik citizens in the first six months of 2024. Many other Tajik migrant workers—and from other Central Asian states—are leaving the country of their own accord.

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