The conflict in Ukraine is no longer in the headlines in Western Europe and yet the situation cannot be described as a frozen conflict. In recent years, ceasefire violations have been a daily occurrence and, despite some timid progress, the implementation of the Minsk Accords has largely stalled. Last April, Ukraine experienced a change of leadership following elections won by an unexpected candidate, Volodymir Zelensky, a Russian-speaking successful comedian whose political line remains difficult to define. Zelensky made the end of the conflict in Donbass one of his priorities without revealing how to achieve it. Nine months after Zelensky's election, what assessment can be made of this new presidency at a time when events seem to be accelerating in eastern Ukraine, with very rapid progress in the peace negotiations?

Photo credit: Volodymyr Zelensky at his investiture ceremony on May 20, 2019. (Licence creative commons)

This quarterly monitoring, published by GRIP since 2011, aims to monitor the security situation in West Africa with a focus on Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal. It examines in particular broad internal security issues, regional tensions, and cross-border and transnational crimes.

Photo credit : Demonstration against a third mandate, in Boffa (visionguinee.info)

On 14 December 2018, the Parliament in Priština decided to transform the Kosovo Security Force, mainly dedicated to civil protection, into typical military forces. While Belgrade and the local Serb minority have strongly condemned this initiative that circumvents the Kosovo constitution, the UN and the NATO have been concerned about the consequences of this move, particularly for the relations between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians.

However, in the short term, this new army, even with the support of the great powers that sponsored the independence of Kosovo, does not seem to be able to threaten its neighbours, and Serbia in particular. In fact, the new government in the making, resulting of an unprecedented coalition, will struggle to find sufficient resources to build armed forces that meet the “highest NATO criteria” to which reference is constantly being made. The main objective of the creation of this army would then be to prove that, despite appearances, Kosovo is indeed a “state like the others”.

Photo credit: President Thaçi inspects KSF troops the day before the laws creating the Kosovo army were passed. (Stringer/EPA/EFE).

Within a few years, cyberthreats have become a major geopolitical issue and a growing concern for many States. However, the West African context and the pressing threats to territorial integrity in the Sahel region have delayed the awareness in the sub-region, so that the policy concerns have been mostly limited to the fight against cybercrime. In the context of the rapid digital growth in West African States, this note analyses the diverse implications of cyberspace in terms of security and sovereignty. This work is partially based on interviews and fieldworks conducted in Senegal, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Niger.

Crédit photo : câbles sous-marins en Afrique (Creative Commons)