Professor Elena Korosteleva, an expert in Eastern European politics, has warned that the crisis in\u00a0Ukraine could \u2018spill over\u2019 into other countries in the region. Professor Elena Korosteleva, whose research has been used extensively by the European Commission to inform policy, also says that Western governments should not regard the release of Yulia Timoshenko as the panacea to Ukraine\u2019s leadership vacuum.<\/p>\n
Professor Korosteleva, of the University\u2019s\u00a0School of Politics and International Relations, commented: \u2018The fluid situation in Ukraine may be the beginning of a wider regional realignment. Moldova is very similar to Ukraine, to the extent that it has two population groups: those seeking greater European influence and those wishing to align with Russia. Like in Ukraine prior to the crisis, people are also concerned with the implications of reforms that the Association Agreement with the EU might bring. The Ukrainian split is likely to exacerbate the ongoing Transdnistrian problem, where a Russian speaking minority declared independence from the rest of Moldova in 1992 and where Russia troops are currently stationed.<\/p>\n
\u2018Belarus is a different matter. Although the country is slowly Europeanising, President Alexander Lukashenko, the country\u2019s long-standing leader, does not and will not tolerate public demonstrations in Belarus. Lukashenko would put down any insurrection with ruthless efficiency.<\/p>\n
Professor Korosteleva is Professor of International Politics and Director of the Global Europe Centre (Professional Studies) at the University of Kent. She is the author of a number of books on Eastern Europe, including EU Foreign Policies in the Eastern Neighbourhood: the practices\u2019 perspective (Routledge).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Professor Elena Korosteleva, an expert in Eastern European politics, has warned that the crisis in\u00a0Ukraine could \u2018spill over\u2019 into other countries in the region. Professor … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[131001],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/polir-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}