Eurotopics.net

Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001, died on March 23 at the age of 84. Born Maria Körbelová in Prague in 1937, she escaped to London with her parents two years later. In 1945 the family moved to Belgrade, but fled the communists to the US in 1948, where Albright became involved with the Democratic Party in the 1970s. She was the first woman to hold the US's top diplomatic post.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has said that on Thursday further sanctions to be imposed by the United States and other countries against Russia to hasten the end of the invasion of Ukraine will be announced. Europe's press discusses how willing individual states are to cooperate.

The fighting directly on the EU's external border, the huge numbers of refugees arriving from Ukraine and the severing of political, economic and travel ties with Russia pose new challenges, but also bring opportunities for Europe, says the press.

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has already spent over a year in a Russian prison camp. Now a Moscow court has sentenced the well-known Putin critic to nine additional years in prison under particularly harsh conditions. Commentators criticise the judgment and call for solidarity.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Monday that he will submit any potential peace deal with Russia to a popular vote in Ukraine. A referendum is necessary because the results of negotiations with Russia on the fate of Ukraine could be "historic", Zelensky said. Commentators react with cautious approval.