In an analysis for IPS Journal, Balázs Jarábik looks at Ukraine’s latest government reshuffle as a response to mounting wartime and political pressures. He argues that personnel changes reflect the leadership’s effort to manage political, economic, and social strains while maintaining continuity at the core of power. Jarábik highlights that reshuffles – dismissing Andriy Yermak and appointing Kyrylo Budanov as head of the Office of the President - signaling responsiveness without fundamentally altering the system. While they may temporarily ease tensions, they do little to address deeper institutional challenges. The result is a pattern of adaptive governance, where stability is preserved, but underlying pressures continue to accumulate.
Following a previous analysis about the prospects of engagement, Balázs Jarábik - after trips to Minsk - explores the limits of pragmatic dialogue as well as evolving political landscape in Belarus. He argues that while the regime maintains firm control through repression, avoiding being directly engaged into the war, but society’s dynamics have not disappeared. Belarus is in the a phase of managed stagnation, where the system has adapted to endure. Societal undercurrents and elite recalibrations continue to shape the country’s trajectory, even in the absence of open political competition. The result is a political environment that appears static but under current is fluid, with long-term implications for both domestic stability and external engagement.
In another signature, long paper for the Carnegie Endowment, Balázs Jarábik with Maria Levonova examines how Russia’s full-scale invasion is reshaping Ukraine’s internal geography. The authors argue that the war is accelerating deep regional realignments - demographic, economic, and political - that define not only wartime governance but also postwar reconstruction. The analysis highlights the shift of economic activity and population toward the west and center of the country, alongside the growing role of regional authorities and new administrative dynamics. These changes are not temporary disruptions but structural transformations, likely to persist beyond the war. Thus, the reconstruction effort will not restore the pre-war status quo but will instead consolidate a reconfigured Ukraine with new regional balances and priorities.
In a signature, long paper for the Carnegie Endowment, Balázs Jarábik and Anatol Oktisyuk writes about gradual re-emergence of Ukraine’s domestic politics as a key battlefield alongside the war itself. While wartime unity has largely held, underlying political competition, institutional tensions, and elite rivalries are beginning to resurface.
The paper highlights that this “unfreezing” of politics reflects both the strain of prolonged war and the anticipation of a post-war transition. As decision-making becomes more contested and informal power centers evolve, Ukraine faces the challenge of maintaining cohesion while accommodating renewed political pluralism. The analysis underscores that managing this internal dynamic will be as critical as developments on the front line.
