Moscow’s decision to allow a growing number of asylum seekers to cross into Finland prompted decisive action from Helsinki.

What are the challenges to Putin’s system? How stable is the Putin majority? What do the domestic protests mean? What signals do the protests in Belarus send to Russia’s elites and civil society? What impact will the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny have? A seminar held by Carnegie Moscow Center and the Embassy of Finland in Russia addressed these questions and much more.

The Belarusian revolution is far from over, and there are at least three scenarios in which the EU and Russia won’t be able to keep their differences over Belarus from escalating from the current moderate competition into an open geopolitical crisis like that seen in Ukraine.

With independent polls indicating that Belarusians neither favor the current government’s course nor see any alternative in the opposition, the status quo must change in favor of the citizens.