NCSEJ WEEKLY NEWS BRIEF Washington, D.C. January 19, 2017

Polish president meets with Jewish community leaders ahead of visit JTA, January 15, 2017 http://www.jta.org/2017/01/15/news-opinion/world/polish-president-meets-with-jewish-community- leaders-ahead-of-israel-visit

WARSAW, (JTA) — Polish President Andrzej Duda met with representatives of the country’s Jewish community, ahead of an official visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Duda, during his meeting with Jewish officials on Thursday explained that this year there was no traditional Hanukkah meeting at the presidential palace because Hanukkah coincided with Christmas. The President said that since 1989 and the fall of communism, Poland has worked to develop Jewish culture and that now many people in Poland are interested in it. Duda said that Jews have made a large contribution to Polish culture, science and Polish independence.

Referring to Poland as the Republic of Friends, President of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities Leslaw Piszewski said that Poland “has a chance to be an example for other nations.”

The meeting was attended by Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich; chairman of Jewish Social-Cultural Association in Poland, Artur Hofman; Israeli Ambassador Anna Azari; the head of From the Depths foundation Jonny Daniels; and leaders of other Jewish organizations.

Duda and his wife will travel to Israel on Monday. On Tuesday, the Polish President will meet in Jerusalem with Israeli President , then he will visit and the Western Wall. In the evening, he will present the highest Polish decorations, the Order of the White Eagle, to Shevah Weiss, former chairman of the and the Israeli Ambassador to Poland. On Wednesday Duda will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem.

JERUSALEM, WARSAW SEEK ENHANCED TIES AS POLISH PRESIDENT VISITS ISRAEL BYGREER FAY CASHMAN Jerusalem Post, January 17, 2017 http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Jerusalem-Warsaw-seek-enhanced-ties-as- Polish-president-visits-Israel-478727 Both Israel and Poland are interested in enhancing relations at all levels and President Reuven Rivlin and Polish President Andrzej Duda each expressed this ambition at a welcome reception that Rivlin hosted for Duda on Tuesday.

In greeting Duda, Rivlin underscored the value that Israel places on its relations with Poland and the European Union and noted that the first country that he visited as president was Poland.

Meetings with Poland’s leadership are always relevant, said Rivlin.

He also mentioned that Duda was in Israel for the second time in a four months period, having previously come to attend the funeral of Israel’s ninth president Shimon Peres, which was a greatly appreciated gesture.

The reference to Peres gave Duda the opportunity to expand on his remarks about what Jews had contributed to Poland’s culture and economy over the centuries, and to the defense of Poland against the Nazis in a more contemporary era.

He hailed Peres as a native son of the and spoke of the contribution of Polish Jews to the creation and development of the State of Israel.

In his praise of Jews, Duda was doing more than merely paying lip service.

His wife, Agata Kornhauser Duda, is of Jewish background. Her paternal grandfather Jakub Kornhauser was Jewish and her father Julian Kornhauser, a professor at Krakow’s Jagellonian University and a well-known writer, translator and literary critic describes himself as a Polish Jew.

Duda’s entourage includes Poland’s Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich as well as a delegation of young entrepreneurs who want to interact with their Israeli peers.

This will be helpful not only to political relations between the two countries, but also to economic relations, said Duda.

Each president spoke of the historic thousand-year symbiosis between Poles and Jews, and Rivlin made the point that relations between the two countries, though sometimes stained with blood in the past are today very close.

The two presidents agreed that in order to ensure that there is continuity to the excellent relations that currently exist between their two countries, young Israelis must visit Poland to learn to understand the people and the culture and young Poles must come to Israel for the same purpose.

When Rivlin went to Poland it was attend the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. When Duda, after his meeting with Rivlin went to Yad Vashem, he saw evidence of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews on Polish soil.

Later in the day, at his own request, Duda visited Peres’s tomb on Mount Herzl and placed flowers on it. He was accompanied by Peres’s grandson Nadav Peres.

JEWISH AGENCY EMISSARY TO EXPECTS ALIYA TO RISE BYSTEVE LINDE Jerusalem Post, January 14, 2017 http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Shlichut-under-fire-Jewish-Agency-emissary-to-Ukraine-expects-aliya- to-rise-478427 “Although it is hardly reported in the media, two or three and sometimes up to 10 people are killed every day in clashes in the region of Donetsk in Ukraine,” says Jewish Agency emissary Max Lurye. “People who live in that area constantly hear explosions, and this has contributed to an unstable situation for all residents, including Jews.”

Donetsk has come under heavy shelling from the Ukrainian Army since it was taken over by pro-Russian separatists in April 2014.

While aliya from Ukraine was down to 5,500 in 2016 from over 7,200 the year before, Lurye says, he expects it to go up again. “After the war broke out in 2014, many Jews just fled and wanted to go to Israel immediately,” Lurye says in a telephone interview from his home in Dnipro (previously Dnepropetrovsk), the country’s fourth largest city almost 400 kilometers southeast of the capital, Kyiv. “Now thanks to our partnership with the Ofek Israel Public Company and Ministry of and Absorption there are more options of doing seminars, learning Hebrew, meeting with Israeli representatives and planning for their future aliya more effectively. So I think the decrease in aliya is temporary.”

No one knows exactly how many Jews there are in Ukraine today, says Lurye. “We think that there are about 200,000, but we are still receiving new requests from people who were not listed in our system before. In 2016 alone, we received 13,000 such requests for information on Israel from individuals eligible for aliya, thanks to the cooperation of the Jewish Agency with the Ofek Israel Public Company,” he says.

Born in Ukraine 34 years ago, Lurye himself made aliya 10 years ago, completed his MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, married Nataly Nabitovsky and had three children.

“I met my wife in Ukraine when she was sent here by the Jewish Agency to work in its camps,” Lurye says. “That’s why I always say I owe the Jewish Agency. We were sent together as Jewish Agency emissaries two and half years ago to Ukraine. I am the regional director, responsible for the eastern section of Ukraine and areas on the border with Russia, while she is responsible for other key areas. When we left, we had no idea of the war that was awaiting us, and that we were going to be doing our ‘shlichut’ (mission) under fire.”

They arrived in Ukraine two weeks before Passover in 2014, and on the second day of the holiday, when the country’s fifth largest city Donetsk was taken over by pro-Russian separatists, all members of its Jewish community received written orders to register themselves with the municipality and pay a fine of 50 dollars.

“Suddenly we understood that we were witnessing something that was not okay, and could cause harm to the Jews living in the communities in that area,” Lurye said. “So we began getting involved in all kinds of activities that I think most Jewish Agency shlichim (emissaries) are not involved in, including getting Jews out of war-torn areas. It was at that time that we also decided to set up a refugee camp in Dnipro for Jews who wanted to go to Israel.”

He notes that the camp is still taking in about 30 to 100 new people every month. Jews from the war-torn areas have undergone severe trauma, and this needs to be dealt with before they go on aliya, he says. “We have to explain to them as best as we can how to deal with this trauma and prepare for their move to Israel,” he says. “It’s important for them to have a contact in Israel, where they know they can receive help. That’s why it’s important for the Jewish Agency and Diaspora Jewry to show that we care and are ready to provide a helping hand whenever we can.”

Roman Polonsky, director of the Jewish Agency’s Department for Russian-speaking Jewry, says aliya from Ukraine has actually tripled itself in the last three years. “In 2013, there were about 2,000 olim, in 2014 it jumped to approximately 6,000, in 2015 it was more than 7,000, and in 2016, it was more than 5,500.”

“The decrease last year is understandable,” he says. “The situation there is quieter than it was in the years of revolution, the annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of war on the eastern border. People have become accustomed to the situation. But if the economic situation does not improve, this will be a major trigger for aliya from Ukraine. Unemployment is increasing, prices jumped substantially four months ago, and I know that the government is trying to eliminate corruption, but it’s very difficult. At the same time, the war in the east is continuing, and all this creates a challenging situation, for all Ukrainian citizens, and especially Jews, who have the possibility of making aliya.”

The Jewish Agency has helped Jews fleeing the war zones in the east by providing them with a secure passage and resettling them, many of them in Dnipro.

“We then helped those who want to come to Israel to make aliya, and provided them with appropriate tracks of absorption after they landed,” Polonsky says. “Many Jews in Ukraine were in a desperate situation, and we expanded the number of our shlichim, seminars, Israel Fairs, Employment Fairs and other activities, together with our partners, Ofek Israel Public Company the Ministry of Aliya and Immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency’s Aliya Unit.”

“Employment is the main concern of potential olim,” he says. “Only if you can find your place in Israel professionally can you be sure to have a home and raise your children properly.”

Despite its antisemitic past, Polonsky does not consider Ukraine an antisemitic country today.

“I don’t see antisemitism in Ukraine on the government level,” he says. “There are undercurrents of antisemitism in the country, but much less than countries like France. For Ukrainians, their big fight is not with Jews but with Russians. Jews are generally respected in Ukraine, and I have not seen any disturbing incidents of antisemitism recently.”

Polonsky estimates that there are some 3 million Russian-speaking Jews in the world today, about 20 percent of the total Jewish population, with over a million in Israel, 800,000 in the US, 500,000 in Russia, 250,000 in Germany, more than 100,000 in Canada, and 30,000 in Australia.

He says the Jewish Agency provides Russian-speaking Jews with four platforms to develop their Jewish identity:

1. Summer Camps: In 2016, more than 8,000 youngsters participated in Jewish Agency camps in 16 locations across the former Soviet Union, while others attended camps in the US, Canada and Australia.

2. Israel Experience: More than 3,500 young Jews were brought to Israel last year in the framework of Birthright or Masa.

3. Young Leadership: The Jewish Agency has programs all over the world to develop leaders among the younger generation. In the Russian-speaking world, it also has 5,000 Jews learning Hebrew in its ulpanim, and 3,000 participants in Sunday schools.

4. Aliya: Immigration to Israel from Russia was up last year to about 7,000 compared to 6,700 the year before and many “hidden Jews” (whose existence not known before) in the former Soviet Union have registered with the Jewish Agency activities over recent years.

“Our aim is to strengthen their Jewish identity, which is difficult because they were detached from their Jewish roots for almost 70 years, to connect them to Israel, bringing Israel to them or bringing them to Israel, and to motivate them to be involved in Jewish collective life, which is also not so simple,” Polonsky says. “Russian- speakers perceive our Jewishness differently. For us, Jewishness is first of all nationality, because it was written in our passports in the former Soviet Union. It’s easier with the second generation, but it’s still a challenge.”

Slovak lawmaker probed for opposing national honors for Jews JTA, January 16, 2017 http://www.jta.org/2017/01/16/news-opinion/world/slovak-lawmaker-probed-for-opposing-national- honors-for-jews

(JTA) — The speaker of Slovakia’s parliament initiated a criminal probe for alleged hate speech against a lawmaker who criticized the conferring of a national honor on Jewish laureates due to their ethnicity. Andrej Danko, the speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, on Thursday said he would subject the far-right lawmaker Stanislav Mizik to disciplinary action in addition to the probe over his posting on Jan. 10 on Facebook of a text slamming the initiation into the Ľudovit Stur Order of three Jewish recipients out of 20 this year, the news website Dennik N reported.

The honor bestowed on Jewish recipients by Slovak President Andrej Kiska “turns logic on its head,” Mizik, a member of Slovakia’s Kotleba – People’s Party Our Slovakia, wrote on Facebook, because the founders of the Slovak nation “had a negative relationship to the Jews due to their selling out of the Slovak nation, usury and also because of religious issues,” Mizík wrote.

The honoring of Ivan Kamenec, a respected scholar on the Holocaust in Slovakia, Mizik wrote, was inappropriate because Kamenec is “a Communist Party candidate who has often worked as an undercover agent” for the communist-era secret police and a “Marxist, who himself admitted in an interview that he is a Jew.”

Juraj Herz, a Jewish film director, was also ineligible for the award due to his origins as was Eva Mosnakova, a Holocaust survivor who lectures at schools about her survival, Mizik wrote.

Martin Kornfeld, the CEO of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Slovakia, told JTA Monday that his organization was pleased at Danko’s “strong reaction” to Mizik’s words, which were reported by many media in Slovakia. Kornfeld called Kotleba a “fascist party,” citing the open veneration by many of its followers of Jozef Tiso, a Nazi collaborator who during World War II served as Germany’s puppet ruler in his capacity as president of the First Slovak Republic.

About 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Slovakia, including thousands who fled there from other countries before World War II. About 15,000 survived.

Last year, amid opposition to the arrival in Central Europe of hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Kotleba enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity in the general elections, that took it from being the 10th largest party with 1.5 percent of the national vote to the country’s 5th largest with eight percent.

Estonia, Lithuania Sign Deals With U.S. To Allow Troop Deployments RFE/RL, January 18, 2017 http://www.rferl.org/a/estonia-lithuania-latvia-military-accord-us-nato/28240474.html

Estonia and Lithuania moved on January 17 to shore up military relations with the United States ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

The two Baltic states signed bilateral defense agreements with the United States to formalize the presence of U.S. troops in their countries, their defense ministries said.

The third Baltic state, Latvia, signed a similar deal with the United States last week.

The accords will ease the deployment of U.S. forces in the countries and allow for joint exercises and training. "We are interested in the continued presence of American troops in Lithuania, as this is one of the key elements of our security," Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis said.

Trump has called the NATO alliance that binds Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania with the United States and 24 other countries "obsolete." The comments caused a stir in the Baltic states, which have expressed concerns about the assertiveness of neighboring Russia following that country’s illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Trump, who will take office on January 20, has repeatedly signaled his intent for warmer relations with Russia. Linas Kojala, director of the Eastern Europe Studies Center in , told the Associated Press that the moves are purposely being made to beat the clock on Trump’s inauguration.

"Both sides (the United States and Lithuania) aimed to finalize the agreement before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, as the arrival of the new administration might push the issue to the bottom of the political agenda," Kojala said.

Lithuania Plans To Build Fence Along Border With Russia's Kaliningrad RFE/RL, January 18, 2017 http://www.rferl.org/a/lithuania-plans-build-fence-along-border-russia-kaliningrad-/28240501.html

Lithuania says it will start construction on a 129-kilometer fence on its border with Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave bordering the NATO-member nation. The interior minister for the Baltic state said on January 17 that the barrier will be 2.5 meters high and feature electronic surveillance systems and drones. The fence, at an estimated cost of $3.85 million, is scheduled to be completed by the end 2017.

The minister, Eimutis Misiunas, acknowledged that the fence would not provide much defense against a massive military assault but said it underscored his country’s concerns about an increasingly assertive Russia, which stations thousands of troops and military equipment in the oblast.

EU-member Lithuania also characterized the move as a way to reduce smuggling.

"We have to prevent smuggling and strengthen the external borders of the European Union. We understand well what is going on in the Russian exclave," Misiunas told AP.

Keeping Alive a Haven for Culture in Modern Romania KIT GILLET The New York Times, January 15, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/world/europe/romania-jewish-theater-bucharest.html?_r=0

The first Jewish theater in Romania was founded in the 1870s in the eastern city of Iasi. The current theater in Bucharest was established in 1940 and remained open throughout the war even as Romania was in the grip of anti-Semitism and many Romanian Jews were sent to labor camps. Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany until it switched sides in 1944.

During the war years, Jewish actors and playwrights who were forbidden to perform elsewhere came to ply their trade, though they were not allowed to perform in Yiddish.

Later, during the Communist period, Nicolae Ceausescu, the authoritarian leader who governed Romania from the mid-1960s to 1989, tore down much of the old Jewish neighborhood to make way for his grand, Soviet- style architectural vision for the city.

“Ceausescu demolished all of this neighborhood,” said Ms. Morgenstern, in her backstage office recently. “Nothing but this theater stayed. Another house, another street, demolished, demolished. It was an ocean of ruins.”

She added: “They didn’t demolish the theater, but it was in a very bad state. No heat, improvised electricity. It was almost a ruin. It was difficult to get here, for us and the audience.”

Though the Communist authorities allowed performances in Yiddish, actors used the fact that many audience members relied on translations to get around some of the tight censorship.

“Because we were talking Yiddish on stage, we could say things that weren’t allowed to be said in Romania,” said Rudi Rosenfeld, 75, a Jewish actor who has been involved in the theater since the late 1940s. “The audience had headphones on and our colleagues were translating into Romanian, but they would skip the sensitive parts,” he added.

Now, subtitles are provided on portable screens.

By the late 1980s, most of the city’s Jewish population was gone. The area around the theater, once a bustling Jewish neighborhood, had gradually lost its Jewish ties. The war years and, later, the country’s decision to allow large number of Jews to emigrate en masse to Israel in exchange for Israeli money and assistance, depleted the local Jewish population. Most who had remained left after 1989, when the regime fell.

It is estimated that the Jewish population in Romania today is less than 11,000, down from around 800,000 before World War II. In Bucharest there are just a few thousand Jews left.

“There is no Jewish neighborhood now, just drawings on a map,” said Gilbert Saim, an official at Choral Temple, one of the few Jewish houses of worship left in the city. Wandering around the neighborhood, it is easy to miss the few remaining signs of the area’s Jewish history: just a handful of religious buildings, often hidden behind ugly apartment blocks, and the theater itself.

From the outside, the theater, which became an official state institution in 1948, barely hints at its legacy or, beyond “Teatrul Evreiesc,” or Jewish Theater, written in vertical red letters, its current role. It is unlikely to feature prominently on any list of Bucharest’s cultural institutes. Yet inside, the 250-seat hall offers classical decoration and rich acoustics.

“I’ve played on Broadway and regional theaters all over the States but this theater, the proportions and acoustics are fantastic,” said Allen Lewis Rickman, an American actor who performed at the hall during an international Yiddish festival held in late November.

Ms. Morgenstern said she did not want the building to just be a monument to the past, but rather a place of active cultural engagement and creativity, bringing in all types of audiences to view the predominantly Yiddish- language performances. (The theater also stages some Romanian-language plays.)

“I worry about the survival of professional Yiddish theaters,” she said, noting that Bucharest, Warsaw and Moscow probably have the last remaining professional Yiddish theaters in Eastern Europe. “We want to continue our tradition of speaking and performing in Yiddish. I don’t want to transform this theater into a museum; it is very much alive.”

With few Yiddish speakers left in the country, audiences have been reluctant to see performances that seem so alien to today’s Romania.

Ms. Morgenstern admits that there have been times when there were more actors on stage than people in the audience. “We have performed for two people,” she said. But in recent years, before the roof collapsed, they had been playing to much fuller houses.

Most of the actors had to learn the language before taking the stage.

“It was a major challenge to learn Yiddish,” said Anka Levana, 32, who has been performing with the theater for a decade. “It took two or three years before I was truly comfortable.”

Despite these challenges, there is a determination to continue the theater’s legacy.

When the roof collapsed, the actors, not wanting to admit defeat, laid out a platform in front of the theater, put up some lights and performed surrounded by snow.

“I’m not sure if it was a protest or not, but we were saying we have no place to perform. We want to perform, we have something to show, but no place,” Ms. Morgenstern said.

Local officials listened, finding the money needed to repair the building.

Now the challenge is to keep the traditions alive, while also engaging with a new generation of theatergoers.

“When I started in this place I was 18 years old,” Ms. Morgenstern said. “Now I am 55. I’ve always thought another two years and this theater will die.”

She added with a smile: “This thought has lasted for 36 years now.”

European anti-corruption body tells Georgia well done, but do more Reuters, January 17, 2017 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-georgia-corruption-report-idUSKBN151189

TBILISI - The Council of Europe on Tuesday called on Georgia to do more to reduce corruption while at the same time acknowledging it had made considerable progress.

The Council's anti-corruption body, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), welcomed positive developments in the South Caucasus country of 3.7 million such as the introduction of a monitoring mechanism for submitting asset declarations by public officials including parliamentarians, judges and high-level prosecutors. But it recommended further enhancing transparency of the legislative process through the publication of all draft legislation, and called for mandatory disclosure of parliamentarians' conflicts of interest.

GRECO said that continuation of the reform of the judiciary was of prime importance and welcomed the recently launched reform of the prosecution service with the view of de-politicising it.

"It is crucial now that the new rules be extended to cover all prosecutors, that they are effectively applied in practice and kept under constant review," GRECO said.

"Now the reform must be effectively implemented and possibly followed by additional measures to further reduce the influence of the government and parliamentary majority on the appointment procedure of the chief prosecutor and on the activity of the prosecutorial council," the report said.

Dozens of former state officials have been convicted in Georgia on various charges, including misspending funds, since a government led by former president Mikheil Saakashvili lost an election in Oct. 2012.

Western countries have aired concerns that the new government has used selective justice and political persecution against opponents in the mountainous country which is a pivot of geopolitical rivalry between Russia and the West.

Georgia is seeking closer links with both NATO and the European Union. The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, France, promotes human rights and democracy in Europe and has 47 member states.

GRECO, which comprises 47 Council of Europe member states, Belarus and the United States, aims to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their compliance with anti-corruption standards.

In Moscow, Moldovan President Says Agreement With EU Was 'Hasty' RFE/RL, January 17, 2017 http://www.rferl.org/a/moldova-russia-dodon-eu-pact-hasty/28239296.html

Moldovan President Igor Dodon has told Russia that a landmark agreement bolstering ties between Moldova and the European Union was concluded "hastily" and suggested he wants to abandon it.

Dodon, who won the presidency in November after promising better ties with Moscow amid popular discontent with the government’s pro-Western policies, was making his first trip abroad since he was sworn in as president on December 23.

Meeting with the head of Russia's upper parliament house, Valentina Matviyenko, Dodon said on January 17 that Moldova "signed certain agreements with the EU that hastily came into force in 2014."

He was referring to the Association Agreement that aims to create closer political ties and remove trade barriers between the EU and Moldova, a small former Soviet republic that borders EU member Romania and Ukraine. Dodon, who met later with President , said that Moldova will seek new agreements but did not say with whom or discuss any other details.

Dodon has made conflicting statements about the Association Agreement, telling Russian media and officials he would work to scrap it while acknowledging in meetings with Western officials and reporters that he does not have the power to cancel it.

Moldova is a parliamentary republic in which the president has largely symbolic tasks, but Dodon’s legitimacy is enhanced because he is the first president in 15 years to be elected through direct voting.

Eastern Europe: Between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin By Ola Cichowlas Moscow Times, January 17, 2017 https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/eastern-europe-between-donald-trump-and-vladimir-putin-56838 Some 4000 American soldiers arrived in Poland last week in one of the largest deployments of NATO troops in Europe since the end of the Cold War. They were greeted ceremoniously in the south western Polish town of Zagan, posing for pictures with civilians and servicemen. Some of them will be deployed to the Baltic states, as part of a promise the United States' departing president Barack Obama made to Eastern Europe at the NATO summit in Warsaw back in July. And now with Donald Trump replacing Obama in the White House, this brigade carried more symbolic weight than ever for the EU's eastern member states.

Three years after the start of the war in eastern Ukraine, another wave of uncertainty is descending over Eastern Europe – the impending change of in leadership in Washington. Last week Trump astonished European leaders by saying NATO is "obsolete" - later clarifying that it is "still important" to him. "I think we Europeans have our fate in our own hands," Germany's Angela Merkel responded. In the last months of Obama's administration, the U.S has sent a number of signals to Eastern Europe with the aim of reassuring NATO's eastern flank that it is committed to the security of the region which fears its proximity to Vladimir Putin's Russia.

Surprisingly, many of Eastern Europe's populist governments welcomed news of Trump’s election. His social conservatism and anti-establishment platform resonated in the newest members of the European Union, many of which recently elected nationalistic leaders. Trump's rhetoric resonated with the region's right-wing parties, to the point that authorities there publicly identified with him. During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Donald Trump was so politically on par with his party that “he must have read our manifesto.”

But, as the campaign continued, there was a growing fissure between Trump and Eastern European nationalists: Russia.

“Eastern Europe received reasons to worry,” says foreign policy expert Mikhail Troitsky. Trump's statement during his campaign that NATO members should be contributing more to their own security if they counted on U.S. support, worried governments east of Berlin. A number of candidates for Trump's cabinet cast doubts on U.S. security commitments in the Baltic states and hinted that the U.S. should negotiate directly with Moscow on the future of Europe's security architecture.

“Europe will be largely on its own,” says political analyst Vladimir Frolov. Eastern Europe, he says, should be concerned by Trump's rhetoric and his willingness to make U.S policy more “understanding” to Russia's interest in the region.

More of the same? As the world watches allegations – some wild, some conceivable – of Donald Trump's ties to Russia circulate, some senior Republicans have taken extra steps to reassure that their party remains firm on Russia. A number of U.S. congressmen rushed to Eastern Europe to show that the United States is still willing to protect them. Some, including John McCain, visited the Baltics and Ukraine soon after the Trump won the election in November.

More recently, the testimonies of Rex Tillerson (Trump's nominee for Secretary of State) and James Mattis (nominee for Secretary of Defense) at their confirmation hearings this week suggested that they cherished the U.S. commitment to NATO and were unwilling to waver in their stance on the Kremlin. “I think it would be very difficult for the Trump administration to review its policy and commitment vis a vis Eastern Europe,” says Troitsky. Still, many in Eastern Europe are not convinced. Poland’s Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski who is known for his public gaffes, visited Washington and New York last week. One of his missions, he says, was to convince the Americans not to be soft on Russia. Waszczykowski met with 93 year-old Henry Kissinger and Michael Flynn (chosen by the president-elect as a national security adviser) to “warn them” not to be soft on Russia.

What should concern the region, analysts say, is not a Russian invasion or the arrival of “little green men.” “That is not on the cards,” says Frolov. Rather, these vulnerable young democracies should be on the lookout for Russia’s meddling in their domestic politics or attempts to control their strategic and foreign policy choices. “Russia is not seeking territory. It is seeking political and economic control,” Frolov says.

Domestic infighting – not Russian influence – has sparked the rise of illiberal democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. But the Kremlin has welcomed the trend. Next month, Putin is due to visit his closest ally inside the EU: Hungary's Viktor Orban. The Kremlin has no need to conduct major political operations in Eastern Europe because local populists are already doing Russia’s work. The growing number of political stand-offs between the EU's eastern member states and Brussels are welcomed in Moscow. “Russia will be doing everything possible in the region to dilute consensus on sanctions,” says Troitsky. The Kremlin, Frolov says, views all former Warsaw Pact countries as Russia’s zone of influence within Europe – all the more so when the right populist leader comes to power. This scenario is playing out throughout Eastern Europe, and no number of U.S. military personnel can do anything about it.

Biden calls Russia biggest threat to international order Reuters, January 18, 2017 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-davos-meeting-biden-idUSKBN15217E

DAVOS, Switzerland U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in his last major speech before leaving office, described Russia on Wednesday as the biggest threat to the international liberal order and said Washington must work with Europe to stand up to Vladimir Putin.

Biden was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos two days before the inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

Trump has sent conciliatory signals to Putin and seemed to encourage the disintegration of the European Union by praising Britain's decision to leave the bloc and predicting that more countries could bolt.

Biden pushed back forcefully against Trump's message, warning hundreds of leaders, CEOs and bankers gathered in a vast conference hall in the Swiss Alps resort town that Putin was likely to try to influence a series of elections in Europe this year, as it is accused of doing in the recent U.S. vote.

"Under President Putin, Russia is working with every tool available to them to whittle away at the edges of the European project, test the fault lines of western nations and return to a politics defined by spheres of influence," Biden said.

"With many countries in Europe slated to hold elections this year, we should expect further attempts by Russia to meddle in the democratic process. It will occur again, I promise you. And again the purpose is clear: to collapse the liberal international order," Biden added.

He did not address Trump directly, but warned of a "dangerous willingness to revert to political small- mindedness" in politics and said that "dangerous autocrats and demagogues" had tried to capitalize on people's fears throughout history.

Biden called Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack on one member of the transatlantic military alliance is considered an attack on all, a "sacred obligation".

Trump has called NATO "obsolete" and raised doubts about whether he would respect Article 5, stirring deep unease in Europe.

"Defending the liberal international order requires that we resist the forces of European disintegration and maintain our longstanding insistence on a Europe, whole, free and peaceful," said Biden.

"It means fighting for the European Union, one of the most vibrant and consequential institutions on earth," he added.

Russia 'Ready to Discuss' Scrapping U.S. Adoption Ban The Moscow Times, January 18, 2017 https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-ready-to-discuss-scrapping-us-adoption-ban-56854

Russia is ready to discuss scrapping its ban on U.S. families adopting Russian children, a top official has announced.

Valentina Matvienko, the speaker in Russia's higher house of parliament, the Federation Council, said that the Russian government was “open to dialogue.”

She claimed that the Kremlin had never wanted to keep the law in place, but accused the United States of refusing to work with Moscow officials.

“If the United States can guarantee our children's rights and well-being, if they are ready to cooperate with our diplomatic representatives, and if they can ensure that our officials are updated on the children's well-being, then there's no reason that everything can't 'return to normal,'” she said. “It was never our aim to keep this law in place.”

Matvienko also accused U.S. officials of prolonging the ban by refusing to try and broker a deal with the Kremlin. "There has been no attempt by U.S. authorities to begin a dialogue with Russia on the issue over the last three years,” she said. “Not a single step was made to try and solve this problem.”

The politician's words come after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the ban, which came into force in January 2013, was discriminatory and illegal.

The decision has already been slammed by Russia's Children's Ombudswoman Anna Kuznetsova and the Kremlin, which has vowed to appeal the decision.

The law was named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian-born toddler who died while in the custody of his adoptive American family in 2008. While officials argue the the legislation protects Russian children — the United States still has not signed the United Nations' convention on the rights of the child — critics claim that the law is a reaction to the United States' so-called Magnitsky List, which placed sanctions on high-ranking government officials.

Russia Gains When Donald Trump Trashes NATO THE EDITORIAL BOARD The New York Times, January 17, 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/opinion/russia-gains-when-donald-trump-trashes-nato.html

Many people in the United States and abroad have consoled themselves by assuming that Donald Trump’s outrageous statements were just politically driven, and he’d temper them once he became president. That thinking seems more wishful than ever when the man chosen to lead the world’s most powerful country keeps saying that two pillars of postwar security and prosperity — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union — are obsolete.

Mr. Trump’s latest salvo against stalwart American allies came in a joint interview over the weekend with The Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper. His published remarks have angered and shaken America’s closest allies in Europe.

Mr. Trump said NATO was obsolete because it had failed to resist terrorism, and he repeated earlier charges that some of its members were not paying their fair share. He described the European Union as “basically a vehicle for Germany” and predicted that other European nations would probably follow Britain’s lead by leaving it. Then came potshots at Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, a strong leader who is facing a tough re-election. He called her brave decision to open Germany’s borders to migrants and refugees a “very catastrophic mistake.” He also suggested that he saw no difference between Ms. Merkel and Vladimir Putin, saying he would, at least initially, trust them equally, even though it was the Russian president who meddled with the American election, bombed civilians in Syria, crushed dissent in his own country and invaded Ukraine.

It is puzzling indeed for a president-elect to publicly denigrate leaders of his country’s closest allies as well as an alliance that for 70 years has stood firm against Russian expansion. And Mr. Trump’s criticism of NATO’s response to terrorism showed no awareness of the alliance’s contributions to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Mr. Trump did say during the interview that “NATO is very important to me,” but in the context of his other remarks, this was hardly enough to blunt the impression that he placed little value on NATO’s historic role as a defender of democracy and its continued usefulness today. Nor did Mr. Trump’s remarks ease concerns that his choices for cabinet members, some of whom seem to have a much firmer grasp of foreign policy than he does, will have little if any influence on administration policy. During their recent confirmation hearings, Rex Tillerson, the nominee for secretary of state, said he saw value in durable alliances; retired Gen. James Mattis, the defense secretary designate, went even further, asserting that “if we did not have NATO today, we would need to create it.”

Mr. Trump’s comments on the European Union almost took the breath away: “I don’t think it matters much for the United States.” The union has its problems, as Britain’s vote to leave it has shown, but to cavalierly dismiss as unimportant the idea of European integration and the second-largest market in the world is to ignore history and reject the future. Mr. Trump seems eager to help unravel the rules-based international order.

The big winner in all this is Mr. Putin, who has been working assiduously not just to delegitimize American democracy by interfering with the election but to destabilize Europe and weaken if not destroy NATO, which he blames for the Soviet Union’s collapse. Mr. Putin will almost certainly try to persuade Mr. Trump to withdraw American support for NATO’s plans to reinforce its defenses against a newly assertive Russia. As part of that effort, an American convoy crossed into Poland last week; on Monday, the deployment of 330 American Marines to Norway began. Reversing course any time soon would be a huge mistake.

European leaders put on a brave face after the Trump interview. “The best response is European unity,” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France said. A worthy response, but incomplete. The Europeans also need America as a partner. America needs Europe as well.

An offer to surrender By Valerii Pekar New Eastern Europe, January 16, 2017 http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/articles-and-commentary/2238-an-offer-to-surrender

Some days ago Viktor Pinchuk, an influential Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist, the son-in-law of the former Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma and an organiser of Davos Ukrainian Breakfast and Yalta European Strategy forums, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal offering a solution to war in Donbas. He claimed Ukraine should renounce its aspirations to join the European Union and NATO, hold elections in the uncontrolled territories under the conditions proposed by Russia and accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Clearly, his article has triggered a fierce opposition of numerous public figures and commentators in Ukraine. However, any good offer to stop a war should be considered seriously and rationally. Let us therefore discuss why many people in Ukraine believe that the solution put forward by Pinchuk would not bring peace and, on the contrary, would deepen the conflict.

The European choice

In November 2013, the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych decided to postpone the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which caused mass demonstrations. After the use of force by riot police, the resulting civil unrest made Yanukovych flee the country. What followed were early presidential and parliamentary elections, the signing of the Association Agreement and the launch of comprehensive economic and political reforms.

Renouncing the European choice, would make redundant all of the aspirations, efforts, sacrifices, and achievements of Ukraine. More than 10,000 soldiers and civilians were killed in the military conflict and the country has paid a high price for its choice. While the country still does not have any prospective of European membership, for Ukrainians the pro-European course has been an anchor, a symbol of the liberal economic and political modernisation that the country must undergo, and the European values many of them died for.

NATO

In 1994, the young Ukrainian state (formed three years earlier) signed an agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia to give up its huge arsenal of nuclear weapons, which was an important step in the nuclear non-proliferation regime. The other three parties of the agreement guaranteed the independence, sovereignty and inviolability of Ukraine’s borders.

20 years later, Ukraine became a target of Russian aggression with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas. In a very short period of time, the country managed to form a powerful army (before, Ukraine had relied on the agreement and did not invest in its military forces), which contained the invader. But Ukrainians feel that only a collective security system will be able to defend the country from further aggression. Any other approach would just lead to the continuation of the war.

Crimea

A deal to give up on a piece of one’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire in another place will hardly stop a war. This is a clear signal for an aggressor that escalation of war will bring them more fruits. And such a deal could be made only at the expense of Crimean Tartars, a small nation that has lived there for centuries, with painful experiences of deportation from the Stalin era. Russia’s policy towards Crimean Tartars in the annexed territory suggests that history is repeating itself. Thus, these territories and people living there are not an object for a bargain.

Donbas Elections

According to the Minsk agreement, elections in the territories that are currently not controlled by Ukraine are possible only after a reliable ceasefire, the withdrawal of all Russian forces, and establishing Ukrainian control over the border. Furthermore, what ought to follow is the demilitarisation of the region, return of the internally displaced persons and access to the area by independent media. This is the only way to organise free and transparent elections, where all Ukrainian political colours and flavours can compete. Any elections under Russian control behind the frontline of the conflict will just help strengthen the rule of self-proclaimed People’s Republics, since alternative candidates will not be able to reach their voters. Millions of Ukrainians living in these territories would be held hostages and the separatists and collaborationists would become members of parliament, which would further prolong the division of the state.

Pinchuk and Russian policy makers may call their offer a compromise, but they have not mentioned the concessions Russia is ready to make. Such a unilateral, non-reciprocal approach looks more like a capitulation.

There are two major questions to be asked. Can Ukraine accept such an offer? Can Ukraine resign on its two major regions, abandon its citizens living there, stop European-style reforms, stop its integration into European markets, and remain a poor, weak and defenceless country dependent on Russia? The majority of Ukrainians will not accept the offer, including the families of killed soldiers and civilians, the internally displaced people (more than 1.7 million), the inhabitants of annexed and occupied territories, all army soldiers and their families, business owners exporting to the EU (now comprising more than 35 per cent of Ukraine’s exports) and their employees, as well as all those who have supported Ukraine’s pro-European path.

Will the acceptance of the offer stop the war? Unilateral, discriminatory concessions just provoke and stimulate an aggressor, increasing its appetite. History provides enough such examples. Efforts to appease an aggressor may lead to further expansion and the continuation and intensification of its attacks.

Syria is a case in point. Until now Ukraine has dealt with the problems caused by the conflict and has not caused any crisis in Europe, be it refugee or military. But the expansion of the conflict would create a black hole on the eastern border of the EU, which could undermine the continent in a similar way as the European efforts to appease Hitler in 1938. Unlike Syria, however, Ukraine borders the EU and is not separated by a sea.

The surrender of Ukraine would not save thousands of lives, as Pinchuk argues, but would lead to the escalation of war and, in return, more suffering, more deaths and more damage.Moreover, it would create a dangerous precedent of a violent redrawing of European borders for the first time since the Second World War, the long- term consequences of which would not be hard to guess.

Valerii Pekar is co-founder of the Nova Kraina Civic Platform and teaches at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. He is a former member of the National Reform Council.