About Nikolaj Nielsen
By EUobserver
Nikolaj Nielsen is a Danish-American journalist working for EUobserver in Brussels. He won a King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.
Wednesday
7th Jun 2023
By EUobserver
Nikolaj Nielsen is a Danish-American journalist working for EUobserver in Brussels. He won a King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.
Belarus has executed two men despite an international appeal for clemency, just as EU countries start talks on whether to impose extra sanctions.
Caught between the competing geopolitical interests of its neighbours, Belarus President Alexander Lukashanko has managed to position himself as a strategic buffer between Europe and Russia. EUobserver's Nikolaj Nielsen examines life - political, economic and cultural - under this autocrat.
All EU ambassadors are returning to Minsk in a bid to improve deteriorating relations with Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, in power for the past 18 years.
A former officer in the 'Diamond' - Lukashenko's elite bodyguard - who lives in exile in the EU, says he "cannot remain indifferent" to the brutality of the regime.
Belarus' future nuclear plant, situated just 50km from Vilnius, sits on a fault line which saw a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 1909.
Young people in Belarus who defy the regime are denied their education, jailed or punished by reprisals against their family. Many of them just want to leave.
Authors Samira Rafaela MEP and Tom Theuns present as facts the extreme views of a politically-motivated campaign in the European Parliament. By doing so, they undermine the very foundations of the European Union.
As the elected leader of Belarus and wife of a political prisoner, forced into exile, we have to rely on the solidarity of the international community to apply meaningful pressure for change in Belarus.