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.

Denmark is one of the most attractive European countries for immigrants due to its high level of socio-economic and political development. However, an increase in the migration burden has led to a tightening of the country’s migration legislation, aimed primarily at limiting the flow of migrants from non-Western countries, preventing segregation, and ensuring the successful integration of migrants into the host society. This study aims to analyse the distribution of immigrants and their descendants in Denmark, focusing on migrants from African countries (Somalia, Morocco, Egypt, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Eritrea) between 2010 and 2023. The authors examine legislative changes in Danish migration policy and analyse data from the Danish Statistical Office regarding migration trends and the geographic distribution of both the native population and individuals of foreign origin across second-level administrative units (communes). The research methodology employs the Herfindahl–Hirschman index to assess the degree of territorial concentration of people of African descent, alongside the Ryabtsev index to measure the similarity between the settlement patterns of migrants and their descendants from Africa and those of Denmark’s indigenous population. The results indicate a decrease in the territorial concentration of the African population in Denmark, as well as a convergence between the settlement patterns of African migrants and Danish-origin residents. However, the intensity of these processes varies significantly based on immigrants’ status, duration of residence in Denmark, and the size of specific African diasporas. Despite the observed deconcentration and increased settlement integration, the African population, particularly individuals of Somali and Moroccan descent, continues to exhibit high levels of territorial exclusion and segregation. Their settlement patterns are often concentrated in ‘vulnerable residential areas’, which still reflect significant socio-spatial disparities.

The article analyzes the role of religion in the context of the contemporary Finnish migration system. The European migration crises have become a national challenge for Finnish society. The integration of (im)migrants, whose ethnic and/or religious affiliation is often opposed to the value-based and ideological foundations of Finnish civic identity, is accompanied by a number of problems. The most significant of them is the escalation of racism and discrimina-tion against migrants by Finns and social structures. The Finnish Migration Service (MIGRI) has been confronted with an unprecedented number of religious conversions from Islam to Christianity by Muslim migrants who use religious conversion as a way to gain asylum or avoid deportation to their home countries on the grounds of a risk of religious persecution. The Ecumenical Council of Finland has criticized the ambiguity of the methods for assessing the credibility of religious beliefs of newly converted Christians. At the same time, the in-creasing number of decisions to deport aliens to unsafe areas has divided the Finnish public into those who support accepting asylum seekers from Muslim countries and those who support anti-immigration movements. An analysis of statistical data and empirical material in the works of Finnish researchers shows that religious conversion is a popular migration strategy despite its low efficiency, the manifestation of Islamophobia in Finnish society to-wards migrants with Muslim background and the possible negative consequences of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. The authors conclude that religion is an important as-pect of social consolidation and integration of foreign cultural migrants, but the formation of religious identity in school education largely contributes to the opposition of ‘us’ and ethno-religious 'others' in Finnish society.

Despite the reunification of Germany taking place more than 30 years ago, the Eastern and Western federal states still have different attitudes toward foreign policy. This article explores the reasons and prerequisites for greater understanding and lower awareness of Russia in the eastern part of Germany. The author examines the correlation between East Germans’ percep­tion of Moscow and their political culture, as well as the economic ties between the Russian Federation and the new federal states. Using archival materials, newspapers from the former German Democratic Republic, interviews, and social surveys, the author tests the hypothesis that sympathy toward Russia in East Germany may be rooted in the shared history of the GDR and the USSR. The steady dissemination of Soviet culture and the Russian language, along with various personal and institutional contacts, made Russia seem less foreign and more familiar. Furthermore, both the GDR and the USSR avoided raising difficult questions about World War II that could have complicated mutual relations. The study also identifies differen­ces between memory politics in Germany and in several other former Eastern Bloc countries, which have influenced perceptions of Russia. Due to the nature of reunification and the rapid integration into Western organizations, reunified Germany did not construct the image of Russia as an antagonistic ‘Other’ to affirm its European identity.

In contemporary information societies, digital inequality among populations has become a significant challenge, impeding both social and economic progress. This study aims to investigate the convergence of digital inequality across 79 regions of Russia from 2014 to 2021, with a particular focus on the population’s access to information and communication technologies. Through the analysis of dispersion and Theil indices, the study reveals a trend of convergence and a growing uniformity in digital inequality indicators among the population of Russian regions over the observed period. Notably, there has been a relatively homogeneous distribution of digital inequality indicators across regions throughout this timeframe. The general trend of reduced dispersion signals a more stable and consistent dynamic of indicators across regions, suggesting enhanced stability and similar development trajectories. Moran dispersion diagrams for both 2014 and 2021 have enabled the identification of regional shifts between quadrants, highlighting progress in the trend towards reducing digital inequality among Russian regions. Regions initially characterised by lower levels of internet development have gradually advanced to higher quadrants in the Moran chart in subsequent years. This indicates a convergence process, wherein these regions are narrowing the gap with, or even surpassing, regions with more advanced internet development. This upward trend reflects the effectiveness of governmental policies and measures aimed at enhancing internet infrastructure and technological integration across the regions.

The global energy crisis of 2021—2022 significantly impacted the financial markets of many countries. The shock of price volatility in the oil and gas market triggered the transmission of crisis processes across various European countries, including those in the Baltic Sea region. This article analyses the effects of the energy crisis on these countries using the financial contagion methodology. The study aimed to estimate the financial contagion that spread through stock market channels in the Baltic Sea region during 2021—2022, as well as to systematize measures aimed at mitigating the consequences of the energy crisis and countering financial contagion. Using statistical analysis methods, the current state of the energy market in the Baltic region and its response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine were examined. By reviewing a range of publications on the Baltic countries, evidence of financial contagion that emerged in different years under the influence of various shocks was identified. The financial contagion methodology was implemented by constructing DCC-GARCH models and estimating contagion effects using specialized test statistics. The calculations revealed that the energy crisis led to financial contagion in the markets of most Baltic Sea region countries. The study identified the causes of these countries’ vulnerability to financial contagion and provided additional estimates of contagion from a sectoral perspective. This allowed for conclusions to be drawn regarding the resilience of individual economic sectors to the crisis. The varying degrees of exposure to financial contagion were explained by differences in dependence on external energy supplies and the nature of anti-crisis policies. The paper systematized a set of specific anti-crisis measures for households and businesses in the Baltic Sea region and outlined strategies for countering financial contagion.