TEFI - The Eastern Frontier Initiative

11/06/2026

Ukraine is left more and more without the promised help. Including from Europe.

One of the European Union's most important mechanisms for financing military aid to Ukraine is facing a multi-billion-euro shortfall, threatening to leave member states waiting for compensation for weapons and equipment they have already delivered to Kyiv.

The problem centres on the European Peace Facility (EPF), the fund through which the EU has reimbursed member states for billions of euros worth of military aid since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Read more on the Easternfrontier website

When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blocked payments from the European Peace Facility, other member states suspended their contributions. Now that the Hungarian veto has been lifted, the fund is empty. 'We will have to wait' - an EU diplomat said.

09/06/2026

Everything you wanted to know about what happened in the last two weeks in Central and Eastern Europe - from a regional and local perspective.

09 June 2026

04/06/2026

„Putin is no longer an autocrat, he is a full-blown dictator, and yet he remains heavily dependent on public mood. His popularity is very important to him, and that is something opinion polls measure quite accurately. I would not say there is a large margin of error in them; they capture how citizens respond.

Of course, one can think about how much people give answers that fit social and political expectations in such surveys, and how much that would change if conditions in Russia were more democratic.

But I think that, in essence, people would not say anything very different. The situation would only be significantly different if Putin were not surrounded by such a powerful propaganda apparatus. His popularity, by Western standards, is still quite high, but the fact that it has been declining for months is a worrying sign for Putin.”

Mikhail Khodorkovsky gave an interview to 444 at the GLOBSEC conference in Prague.

He was the richest man in Russia, and the 16th richest man in the world, but in 2003 he was arrested, and in May 2005 he was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of money laundering, embezzlement, and fraud. He was unexpectedly pardoned by presidential decree in 2013. He currently lives in London, where he organizes (and funds) Russian opposition groups in exile.

Last year, the Russian regime initiated criminal proceedings against Khodorkovsky, among others, on charges of "attempted coup" and "creating or participating in a terrorist organization."

Read more on the easternfrontier website.

444 interviewed London-based Russian opposition leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky during the Globsec Forum 2026 in Prague.

28/05/2026

If the Iran war lasts into summer, economic forecasts will need a reset

Even a ceasefire wouldn't restore oil flows overnight. A prolonged Hormuz disruption could push prices higher, strain supplies, and force a global rethink of growth expectations.

Read our interview with Petras Katinas, energy policy researcher at RUSI. The London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is one of the world’s oldest think tanks focusing on security policy.

Even a ceasefire wouldn't restore oil flows overnight. A prolonged Hormuz disruption could push prices higher, strain supplies, and force a global rethink of growth expectations.

29/04/2026

Orbán's fall weakens Moscow's position in the EU, but Hungary's deep energy and economic ties mean Russian influence won't disappear overnight.

Read more on our TEFI website

20/04/2026

Hungarian elections continue to dominate the disinformation landscape on the eastern flank of the European Union. However, while Central Europe is dealing with the fallout from revelations of cooperation between Hungary and Russia, the Baltic states are facing more pressing issues-drone incidents and the reporting on them distorted by Russian propaganda.

Read the Disinformation Monitor, a regular monitoring focused on disinformation and key developments in the areas of the information space, hybrid threats, and influence operations by The Eastern Frontier Partnership (TEFI). The Disinformation Monitor will be published on a monthly basis and will provide a concise overview of developments on the disinformation scenes on NATO’s eastern frontier.

08/04/2026

A series of incidents last week, in which drones launched from abroad crossed into Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian territory, unsettled many people across the Baltics - even after it emerged that they had come from Ukraine and were reportedly on a mission to strike targets in Russia. How do we protect ourselves from something like this?

Geopolitical tensions and the Baltic states' shared border with Russia and Belarus have changed the region in ways that would have been hard to imagine before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine: a new industry has emerged.

Alongside government efforts across the Baltics to lure military manufacturers and build factories producing ammunition, armored vehicles and other battlefield equipment, local tech entrepreneurs are pursuing a path of their own.

Read our article on The Eastern Frontier Initiative website

31/03/2026

The Czechoslovak Group (CSG) began expanding within Slovakia’s defence industry before Robert Kaliňák (Smer) became defence minister in late 2023. But it has been during his tenure – and, crucially, with his backing – that CSG, owned by Czech tycoon Michal Strnad, began transforming into a European arms-industry powerhouse.

The group has been granted contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros, signed framework agreements running into tens of billions, helped to establish new factories in Slovakia, and expanded production at existing sites.

Read more in our article on The Eastern Frontier Initiative website.

24/03/2026

Apaches, Abrams tanks, F-35s - it all sounds impressive. The Polish army is finally saying goodbye to the Soviet Union. But there is another side to the coin.

Poland's rearming drive still has some big weak points. Read our article on the Eastern Frontier website.

17/03/2026

The election campaign is entering its final stage in Hungary, fuelling misinformation campaigns in the country, aimed particularly at Volodymyr Zelensky as the main antagonist of Viktor Orbán. In Poland, the disinformation scene spreads fear of potential power outages in the wake of the Iran war, while in Estonia disinformers turn to macroeconomic statistics to present their country as a cautionary tale of what happens when a state cuts ties with Russia.

Read the first issue of the Disinformation Monitor, a regular monitoring focused on disinformation and key developments in the areas of the information space, hybrid threats, and influence operations by the Eastern Frontier Partnership. The Disinformation Monitor will be published on a monthly basis and will provide a concise overview of developments on the disinformation scenes on NATO’s eastern frontier.

The election campaign is entering its final stage in Hungary, fuelling misinformation campaigns in the country, aimed particularly at Volodymyr Zelensky as the main antagonist of Viktor Orbán. In Poland, the disinformation scene spreads fear of potential power outages in the wake of the Iran war, w...