Regional Overview: Europe & Central Asia | February 2024

Armenia-Azerbaijan: Cross-border gunfire resumes

Shooting incidents along the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed in February after a three-month lull. On 12 February, the Azerbaijani defense ministry alleged two instances of gunfire from Armenian territory, one of which reportedly wounded an Azerbaijani border guard. On the following day, Azerbaijani gunfire killed four Armenian personnel and wounded one on the southern section of the border in the area of Nerkin Hand, Syunik region. Five further gunfire incidents were reported along the borders throughout the rest of the month. Nevertheless, peace treaty talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed in mid-February with German mediation.¹ Pointing to a probable delaying tactic to extract maximum concessions in an already fraught process,² Azerbaijan demanded that Armenia scrap references to Artsakh³ from its founding legislation.⁴

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Europe: Farmer protests expand

After engulfing Germany and then France in January, the wave of farmer protests demanding less regulation and more protection spread across Europe in February. While recording a comparable number of events — almost 1,800 and 1,900 events, respectively — ACLED notes demonstration activity in 27 European countries in February, compared with 17 in January. During demonstrations, farmers dumped manure, burned hay and tires, and blocked roads, borders, and ports. Over a quarter of protests occurred in Spain, where farmers demanded fairer prices for their produce, the same standards for free-trade counterparts, and greater post-drought aid. 

More than a fifth of demonstrations occurred in Poland, where farmers have been protesting against competition with Ukrainian agricultural produce since early 2023. In February, they intermittently blocked six of eight land border crossings with Ukraine for cargo trucks, as well as occasionally crossings into the Czech Republic, Germany, and Lithuania. There were also several instances of demonstrators spilling Ukrainian agricultural produce. Ukrainian truck drivers responded with counter-protests on the other side of the border, while the Polish and Ukrainian governments appeared to be talking past each other about ways to resolve the crisis.⁵ Large farmer rallies also occurred in Greece and Italy, including in the respective capitals. 

Most demonstrations proceeded peacefully across the region — with the exception of the Netherlands, where about a third of farmer demonstrations turned violent. Participants blocked highway exits and burned tires and bales of hay, leading to eventual dispersal by police. Notable outbreaks of violence also occurred in France and Belgium. On 23 February, French farmers descended on an agricultural fair in Paris and clashed with police on the following day while attempting to interrupt President Emmanuel Macron’s opening remarks. Two violent demonstrations occurred in Brussels, both targeting European Union institutions during meetings discussing agricultural and environmental policies. Despite the EU scrapping plans to cap pesticide use and shelving a free trade deal with several Latin American countries in the wake of the protests, farmers are seeking to derail parts of the Green Deal that require farmers to cut methane emissions and meet other environmental targets.⁶

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Russia: Crackdown on Navalny vigils

On 16 February, Russian prison authorities announced the death of detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He was serving a lengthy sentence on bogus charges after surviving an assassination attempt by suspected security service operatives.⁷ He died a month before President Vladimir Putin’s expected re-election to a fifth term after nearly 25 years in power. With space for demonstrations severely limited by military censorship and COVID-19 restrictions still in force in Russia, police cracked down on people laying flowers at makeshift memorials that appeared shortly after the announcement. Of the over 440 arrests in connection with the memorials in the first three days after the news broke, around half occurred in St. Petersburg, Putin’s hometown. Police detained at least 65 people in Moscow and the rest in 27 other cities across Russia. The delayed burial of Navalny on 1 March drew crowds but proceeded calmly amid heavy police presence and government intimidation of students on the eve.⁸ 

Separately, pointing to likely further diminishing tolerance of dissent, Russian courts sentenced Boris Kagarlitsky, a prominent left-wing thinker, and Oleg Orlov, a veteran human rights activist, to prison terms after initially imposing heavy fines on both for criticizing Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.⁹ 

For more, see ACLED’s analysis of protest activity ahead of the March 2024 presidential election in Russia.

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Ukraine: Russian counter-attack presses ahead

On 17 February, Ukrainian forces withdrew from Avdiivka, north of the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, after holding on to the heavily fortified salient for over four months amid a renewed Russian assault. Russian forces overwhelmed defenders with the sheer mass of armor and infantry, high casualties notwithstanding.¹⁰ Additionally, Russian forces may have achieved localized aerial superiority for the first time since the beginning of the invasion despite higher-than-usual losses of fighter jets.¹¹ As Ukrainian forces retreated, Russian forces also captured several villages north and west of Avdiivka. Fighting continued around Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, while in the Zaporizhia region, Russian forces concentrated their attacks on Robotyne and neighboring Verbove.

Although gaining ground at a slower pace than Ukraine during its counter-offensive in the summer and fall of 2023, Russian forces are capitalizing on troop and ammunition advantage¹² as Ukraine is grappling with the mobilization bill stalled in parliament¹³ and uncertainty of further weapon shipments from the United States due to the gridlock in Congress.¹⁴ Meanwhile, around the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine signed multi-year military assistance agreements with a raft of signatories of the G7 declaration on continuous support for Ukraine,¹⁵ including France and Germany. The United Kingdom signed the first such agreement in January, with a number of other treaties pending.¹⁶ Additionally, on 1 February, EU member states overcame Hungary’s opposition to a large budgetary support package for Ukraine.     

For more information, see the ACLED Ukraine Conflict Monitor.

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