The Eastern Europe and Central Asia region is middle-income, resource-rich and well-educated. Yet even before Russia launched its war against Ukraine, it had entered a state of volatility.
Since 2020, the internal politics of previously stable states – including Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Moldova – have become confrontational, while those with a history of instability, such as Kyrgyzstan, have continued down that road.
Overall, expectations of peace through reform and convergence of values in post-socialist states seldom came true. These ideas, which are today mostly history, were held by the Western policy-makers, UN institutions and the international peacebuilding community that intervened in the region over the past 30 years. They were shared, at least partially, by the people involved in the conflicts, who often looked to the internationals for fair solutions they could not reach themselves.
