Thomas de Waal
Foreign Affairs
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Thomas:
Nagorno-Karabakh in the Shadow of Ukraine
What Russia’s war means for Armenia and Azerbaijan. → Read More
No Compromise in Sight for Armenia and Azerbaijan
A century-long search for an impossible victory in Nagorno-Karabakh. → Read More
What Is at Stake in Ukraine’s Election?
Ukraine votes for a president on March 31. Will the pro-Western incumbent, Petro Poroshenko, win? Or will he lose to his old foe, Yulia Tymoshenko, or wild card Volodymyr Zelenskiy? → Read More
The strange normality of life in a breakaway state
Things aren't always simple for the millions who live in places that aren't considered real nations. → Read More
The strange normality of life in a breakaway state
Things aren't always simple for the millions who live in places that aren't considered real nations. → Read More
Sometimes Armenian Protests Are Just Armenian Protests
Not every post-Soviet revolution is about the geopolitics of Russia. → Read More
The EU and Ukraine: Taking a Breath
Ukraine and the EU are closer than ever before. But events over the last four years have also shown how far apart they still are in economic capacity, governance, and their visions for the future. → Read More
Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus
The history of Russia and Chechnya is mainly one of conflict, starting at the end of the eighteenth century. → Read More
Georgia’s Zig-Zag Progress
Georgia is the most pluralist and freest country amongst its neighbors. Yet, the post-1992 governing regimes have had both positive and negative impacts. → Read More
Bolshevik Squabbles Still Shape the Caucasus
A century after the October Revolution, the Bolshevik legacy is too close for the people of the South Caucasus to evaluate properly. No one wants to see that era return, but everyone comes from it. → Read More
Whither the South Caucasus?
Twenty-five years after Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia became independent states, the South Caucasus remains a strategically sensitive region. → Read More
A Belarusian Balancing Act
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has become Europe’s ultimate deal maker, by trying to keep his options open with the EU while not letting Russia take him for granted. → Read More
The Threat of a Karabakh Conflict in 2017
A descent into renewed fighting in the South Caucasus is the last thing anyone wants—least of all the ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis who will be caught in the middle of it. → Read More
Enhancing the EU’s Engagement With Separatist Territories
The EU’s policy of non-recognition and engagement in the South Caucasus has been modestly successful and may offer useful lessons for other parts of Eastern Europe. → Read More
2016, the Year Europe Forgot World War II
The year 2016 witnessed the breakup of the common identity that had held Europe together for over seventy years. Two notable examples come from Britain and Russia. → Read More
Revenge of the Border
For years to come, the former Soviet Union will be home to some of the world’s most impregnable borders. → Read More
Deal-Maker Trump Will Feel at Home With Eastern Europe
Even before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump won the White House, much of Eastern Europe was living in Trumpland, where politics is more about making deals than about building institutions. → Read More
Ever-Intractable Transdniestria
Moldova’s election of a pro-Russian president may be symbolically important but is unlikely to assuage the conflict in the country’s breakaway region of Transdniestria. → Read More
Eastern Europe’s Superfluous Men
Russian nineteenth-century literature famously had a string of leading characters, the best known being Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, who were called superfluous men. This literary superfluous man was a brilliant free-thinking individual whose gifts were unwanted by the Russian state and by a rigid imperial bureaucracy that valued only obedience and patriotism. Onegin and his peers showed… → Read More
Georgia Holds an Election Without Saviors
Georgia’s parliamentary election on October 8 will be the first in the country’s history in which no big charismatic figure is dominating the headlines. → Read More