The article presents an analysis of contemporary British military-political strategy in the Baltic region. Since 2014, there has been a notable increase in British presence in the area, leading to multiple security risks for Russia, particularly since 2022. This is due to the fact that the UK has increasingly linked its national security threats to Russia’s policy towards Ukraine, as well as in the Black Sea and Baltic regions. By focusing on Russia’s positions in the Baltic and Black Sea regions, the UK has defined its security priorities, explicitly connecting them to countering “threats from Russia and preventing Russia from gaining strategic advantages as a result of the situation in Ukraine,” as clearly stated in the 2023 Security Review. It is no coincidence that British military strategists have started emphasizing the interconnectedness of the Baltic and Black Sea regions, as well as the Baltic and Arctic regions, highlighting the necessity of ensuring security in one part by addressing security challenges in others —primarily by limiting Russia’s influence. Through an analysis of key British security documents within the framework of the regional security complex theory, the author demonstrates how the Baltic Sea region has become a crucial link for British military strategists, connecting the Far North and Eastern Europe.

The aim of the article is to determine how the UK’s security interests are connected to and pursued through its interactions with the Baltic Sea region countries. To achieve this, the following research objectives have been set: to analyse the conceptual and strategic goals of the UK in the field of security and the implementation of its national interests; to outline the role and significance of the Baltic Sea region within the UK’s broader international security strategy; and to identify specific tactical approaches employed by the UK to advance its national interests through cooperation with NATO countries in the region.

The flip side of the European Union’s policy aimed at accelerating the fourth energy transition has been energy isolationism — namely, the pursuit of quantitative indicators characterising a country’s energy balance without considering their impact on the energy balance of neighbouring countries. This article examines energy isolationism using the example of Lithuania’s 2022 initiative, which called on the three Baltic States to disconnect from the BRELL synchronous power grid — linking them to Russia and Belarus — before 2025. According to a plan developed in 2018, they were originally scheduled to disconnect in 2025. However, Latvia and Estonia did not support Lithuania’s initiative and, after negotiations lasting until mid-2023, agreed to adhere to the original timeline. The article analyses these negotiations as minilateral — multilateral discussions involving a small number of participants — which differ in nature from both bilateral negotiations and large-scale multilateral negotiations with numerous participants. Using game theory, the article presents a model of these negotiations. In practical terms, the ‘three-player, three-option’ model explains why the failure of negotiations followed by Lithuania’s unilateral desynchronisation from BRELL was the least probable scenario from the outset. More broadly, the model demonstrates that no two Baltic States with similar negotiating positions could accept any outcome other than their most preferred one, even if accepting a different outcome would allow the third state — with a divergent negotiating stance — to avoid its least preferred option. The article concludes that the inability of the majority to compromise with the minority prevents minilateral cooperation among the three Baltic States from evolving to a higher level — comparable to the more advanced minilateral cooperation seen among the Nordic countries.

The modern understanding of representative democracy includes not only the rule of the majority, but also the protection of the rights of minorities. One such minority is indigenous peoples, including the Sámi population that lives in four European countries, namely in the northern territories of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. In these countries, the Sámi, as a minority, find it difficult to achieve an adequate level of representation in traditional political structures that are responsible for articulating interests (parties, parliaments), therefore special mechanisms were found that allowed this indigenous people to participate in political decision-making processes more actively. The purpose of the article is to study the evolution and features of the political representation of the Sámi in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The choice of countries is dictated by the cross-border nature of the Sámi settlement and the practice of diffusion of institutions of political representation. The methodology is based on neo-institutionalism and constructivism theories. It is concluded that after World War II, global transformations of the institutional environment took place in developed countries, and they were expressed in the rejection of the racial paradigm, the establishment of the supremacy of democracy and human rights. In the countries of Northern Europe at the end of the XX — beginning of the XXI centuries, the concept of “Arctic identity” was formed instead of identity through the construct of the “Nordic race”, which was characteristic of the first half of the XX century. At the center of it is the concept of indigeneity. From the beginning of the XX century, the Sámi that were subjected to forced assimilation in all three countries (discriminatory policies of “swedification”, “norwegianization” and “finnization”) and that were forced to fight for their rights with minimal chances of winning over the dominant discourse of racial inferiority, became beneficiaries of the changes, received special status, collective rights, and opportunities for political representation in modern conditions. However, several problems and discriminatory practices against the Sámi remain relevant and require solutions at the level of public policy.