I worked for over a month as a volunteer trying to help Ukrainian refugees in Bucharest, and this is what I discovered, published in Scena9 I am talking with a friend of mine. She volunteers in a transit camp in Bucharest’s main railway station, Gara de Nord, for Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian attack. I […]
Category Archives: Black Sea Politics
Reports and analyses on politics in the Black Sea region
How, where and with what justification could Russia launch an attack? A feature published in Scena9 In 2021, Russian president Vladimir Putin published a rambling essay on the Kremlin’s website called ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’. As a work of historical analysis it is questionable, but as a historical document, it is […]
Welcome to the Romanian region that expects its residents to live and work abroad. A feature written with Vlad Odobescu, and published in DoR in Romania and Internazionale in Italy In the center of the northeastern Romanian city of Botoșani is a 1980s housing block, next to an awning for the country’s most popular beer, […]
The President of the USA associated with a Kazakh business network that was subsequently involved in controversial football deals and a trial in Turkey concerning trafficking in underage Russian girls Published in The Black Sea, as part of the European Investigative Collaboration’s Football Leaks probe The President of the USA Donald Trump has […]
Scandal on the Med: a police raid, suspected trafficking of girls and connections to the elite of America, Russia, Turkey and Kazakhstan: new findings published in The Black Sea Written in collaboration with Zeynep Sentek and Craig Shaw Antalya. Turkey’s pre-eminent seaside resort. A 450-foot yacht moored on the Mediterranean shore. The Savarona. This mega-vessel had […]
While grand residential projects help regenerate the outer centre of the Spanish capital’s district of Delicias, Romanian beggars build shanty-huts in the dirt – a short report written with Vlad Odobescu for The Black Sea Delicias. In English this means ‘Delights’. A district in outer central Madrid. A warm Wednesday. Huge new apartment complexes of brick […]
How kids from Romania were sexually abused by the Italian elite at Rome’s Termini station Text by Michael Bird, Cecilia Ferrara and Vlad Odobescu, published here in The Black Sea Illustrations by Sorina Vazelina Over 100,000 passengers pass through Rome’s Termini station every day. Its 33 platforms host high-speed trains that span Europe and […]
Women trafficked from Romania to Spain for sex reveal the path from tragedy to recovery. Published here on The Black Sea Text by Feliciano Tisera, Vlad Odobescu and Michael Bird Illustrations by Sorina Vazelina “When they start to rape you, you stay quiet, as you don’t want to be killed. You stay completely paralyzed by fear, […]
A posting from The Black Sea, available here They are against the EU, the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe and open borders. They don’t like to be called extremists. They want to be called radicals. They can command up to a third of the votes in their countries. Last weekend they came to one of the […]
A controversial supplier of electricty from the frozen conflict zone of Transnistria to Moldova has an ownership structure linked to companies involved in a “billion dollar theft” from Moldova’s banking system in 2014 A preliminary investigative report into Moldova’s energy troubles published in The Black Sea and across dozens of the largest news sites in Moldova […]
Michael Bird Writer & Journalist 