Tom de Waal is a senior fellow with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region.
He is the author of numerous publications, most recently The End of the Near Abroad (Carnegie Europe/IWM, 2024). The second edition of his book The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press) was published in 2018. He is also the author of Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2015) and of the authoritative book on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013).
From 2010 to 2015, de Waal worked for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. Before that he worked extensively as a journalist in both print and for BBC radio. From 1993 to 1997, he worked in Moscow for the Moscow Times, the Times of London, and the Economist, specializing in Russian politics and the situation in Chechnya. He co-authored (with Carlotta Gall) the book Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (NYU Press, 1997), for which the authors were awarded the James Cameron Prize for Distinguished Reporting.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left a group of “in-between” European countries more vulnerable and insecure than ever before. This arc of instability spans from the South Caucasus through Moldova to the Western Balkans.
Russia’s war on Ukraine is driving Georgia’s government toward closer alignment with Moscow and other illiberal states
Russia and like-minded South Caucasus leaders are reshaping alliances in the region, where competition for influence is raging.
Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia are caught in between Russia and the EU, building ties with the latter even as the former seeks to maintain influence there and deter the West.
Georgia's foreign agent bill is a turning point for the state of democracy in the country and Tbilisi's relations with its partners.
Georgia's self-mobilised citizenry is resisting a ruling party that seems intent on staying in power at all costs.
Putin’s war on Ukraine marks the end of the near abroad—the idea that Russia enjoys a special status in much of the post-Soviet space. But while Russia’s neighbors are seeking greater independence, they are not necessarily turning West.
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Thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine marked a historical juncture for countries beyond Ukraine and Russia.
Armenia and Azerbaijan may be nearing a bilateral peace agreement, but the threat of violence persists. A major sticking point is the Zangezur Corridor, where Baku and Moscow may pursue a deal to the detriment of Yerevan and the West.
Armenia is facing its most precarious moment in three decades. The loss of Karabakh, a region with a centuries-old history of Armenian habitation and heritage, will reverberate for generations.
