Page 3 - bneMagazine March 2023 oil discount

bne March 2023 Contents I 3
SPECIAL FOCUS
27 Sanctions had a very limited effect on Russia's economy in 2022
28 Russia’s slide towards dictatorship drags down global democracy index
CENTRAL EUROPE
46 Hungary’s highest-profile corruption case lifts the veil on how Orban's regime really operates
49 Pavel wins landslide victory in Czech presidential election
50 Czech footballer's coming out praised as courageous statement in region still marred by anti-LGBTQ+ violence
51 OBITUARY: Lubomir Strougal, longest serving Czechoslovak prime minister
SOUTHEAST EUROPE
52 15 years after independence, is Kosovo on the verge of
a breakthrough?
53 Chaos inside and outside parliament in day of opposition protests in Albania
55 Turkish minister tells US ambassador ‘Take your dirty hands off Turkey’ as sanctions sparks fly
56 Not even a nosebleed – how Turkish town was successfully built to withstand 1999 earthquake
57 Russian foreign minister speaks of Moldova as the “next Ukraine”
EASTERN EUROPE
58 Putin revokes Russia’s foreign policy law and sets the stage for a new Cold War
60 Putin's gas suicide and the end of the affair with Germany's Wintershall
62 Ukraine anti-corruption officers raid home of Kolomoisky
63 Ukraine’s war is causing a demographic crisis
EURASIA
64 How Russia and Iran are in cahoots
66 Uzbekistan’s relations with Taliban start to fray
68 Uzbekistan’s relations with Taliban start to fray
69 Could casinos be a jackpot for Mongolia’s struggling economy?
70 Hopelessness grows as Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh enters third month
OPINION
72 Russia is down, but not out, in Central Asia
74 Ukraine might lose the war this summer unless West gives it more offensive weapons now
78 Is Serbia’s far right an authentic opposition movement?
79 Taliban’s lousy power deals exposed as Uzbekistan pulls plug in deadly cold
NEW EUROPE IN NUMBERS
83 China steps into the sanctions trade hole to supply Russia
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