Building NATO Collective Defence Capabilities in Northeastern Europe I

The basis of NATO’s existence is the collective defence of Allies, its population and borders. Assurance and deterrence measures and activities implemented in Northeast Europe aim to build NATO’s common defence potential and deter potential aggression against NATO members. Assurance activities began in 2014, defined at the NATO Summit in Wales. They respond to the changed security situation on NATO’s eastern borders with Russian activities, the illegal annexation of Crimea, destabilisation activities and military involvement in eastern Ukraine. Increasing military activities and concentration of Russian military forces near NATO’s eastern borders, accompanied by hybrid warfare activities against the Northeastern European NATO members, followed. After the NATO Summits in Warsaw (2016) and Brussels (2018), NATO assurance and deterrence measures have been launched as a response to perceived threat. They aim to strengthen the Eastern Allies’ defence and deter and prevent any potential aggression while building Allied collective defence capabilities.

MANUFACTURE OF THE WELL-KNOWN CENTRAL AND NORTHEASTERN EUROPEAN EYE FIBULAE: PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN TRICKS OF THE TRADE

ABSTRACT The emergence and widespread distribution of eye fibulae as adornment objects, from the northern provinces of the Roman Empire to northeastern Europe and Scandinavia, as well as their typology have been widely explored. Currently in Lithuania, a total of 209 eye fibulae dating to the 1st and 2nd centuries are known. The geographical distribution, typology and chronology of these Early Roman Period jewelry artifacts do not present any problem. However, the technology of manufacture of these fibulae has been much less studied. The present article analyzes the technology of manufacture of Prussian series eye fibulae, including the previously unknown specific manufacturing techniques, such as the use of wooden axes to modify the construction of the fibula and make it more durable and long lasting. Radiocarbon (14C) dating has unambiguously confirmed that the wooden axes are contemporaneous with the time of the use of the fibulae, while observation under the scanning electron microscope has identified wood species used for making the wooden axes. The X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) analysis was used to determine the copper alloys, of which eye fibulae were made. The manufacturing technologies of eye fibulae (forging and casting) are discussed in the context of analytical and experimental studies.

A long distance migration in Nyctalus leisleri from the Czech Republic to southern France (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)

On 28 January 2020, three living individuals of the Leisler’s bat, Nyctalus leisleri, were found in a shed in Malaucène, southern France (44°11’34”N, 05°07’26”E). Two of these bats had bands with the inscription CESON.ORG used in the Czech Republic since 2019. The whole ring code was detected in one case (CZ03313), in a female captured and banded in a bat-box near Bečov nad Teplou, western Bohemia, Czech Republic (50°05’27”N, 12°51’38”E) on 9 September 2019, 878 km away from Malaucène. This is the first case of a long distance migration in the population of Nyctalus leisleri of the Czech Republic. This observation also gives a direct evidence of a flight during the maximum 141 days in late summer or autumn from the central or northeastern Europe to the southwestern parts of the continent.

Information about Dagestan in the Arabic Geographical Work Kitab al-a’lak an-nafisa of Ibn Rusta

The article provides information on the history of Dagestan in the 10th century on the basis of translation, commentary and comparative analysis of excerpts from the Arabic geographical work Kitab al-a’lak an-nafisa (Book of Precious Gems) by Abu ‘Ali Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Rusta who lived and wrote in Isfahan at the turn of the IX–X centuries about the history of the peoples of the Caucasus. As for information on Dagestan, Ibn Rusta’s work contains more information than Ibn Khordadbekh’s and Ibn Faqih’s works. In his work, Ibn Rusta adopts the ancient Greek theory of the division of the inhabited parts of the Earth into seven climates, for example, he places the region in question in the sixth and seventh climates. Ibn Rusta’s data on the geography and ethnography of northeastern Europe, as well as the political formations in the Caucasus, are unique and significantly supplement the author’s predecessors. The parts dedicated to Sarir, which gained its regional hegemony in the X century, are of particular importance. The author of the current article compares several reports on Dagestan from Ibn Rusta’s work with Ibn Khordadbekh’s Kitab al-masalik wa-l-mamalik and Ibn Faqih’s Kitab al-Buldan in order to determine whether the origin of the material is the same for these authors. As a result, only one passage was found that overlapped with the work of Ibn Khordadbekh. Also, it is noted that N. A. Karaulov’s translation contains interpretative flaws and some fragments from Ibn Rusta’s work are missing. The scientific significance of this article is determined by the fact that its materials can be used in further source studies in writing the medieval history of the Caucasus.

Climatic oscillations in Quaternary have shaped the co-evolutionary patterns between the Norway spruce and its host-associated herbivore

During the Last Glacial Maximum in the Northern Hemisphere, expanding ice sheets forced a large number of plants, including trees, to retreat from their primary distribution areas. Many host-associated herbivores migrated along with their host plants. Long-lasting geographic isolation between glacial refugia could have been led to the allopatric speciation in separated populations. Here, we have studied whether the migration history of the Norway spruce Picea abies in Quaternary has affected its host-associated herbivorous beetle—Monochamus sartor. By using microsatellite markers accompanied by the geometric morphometrics analysis of wing venation, we have revealed the clear geographic structure of M. sartor in Eurasia, encompassing two main clusters: southern (Alpine–Carpathian) and eastern (including northeastern Europe and Asia), which reflects the northern and southern ecotypes of its host. The two beetles’ lineages probably diverged during the Pleniglacial (57,000—15,000 BC) when their host tree species was undergoing significant range fragmentation and experienced secondary contact during post-glacial recolonization of spruce in the Holocene. A secondary contact of divergent lineages of M. sartor has resulted in the formation of the hybrid zone in northeastern Europe. Our findings suggest that the climatic oscillations during the Pleistocene have driven an insect-plant co-evolutionary process, and have contributed to the formation of the unique biodiversity of Europe.