Where did Europe's pressure points lie on 18 November 2021?

What was shaping Ukraine's neighbourhood on 18 November 2021? Reports from the preceding days pointed to pressure on several fronts at once.

On 16 November 2021, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the west would have to choose between reliance on Russian gas and supporting Ukraine, amid reported buildups of the Russian military near the Ukrainian border. The same day, gas prices in the United Kingdom and the European Union rose by 17% after the German energy regulator suspended approval of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The regulator said the €10 billion project had to comply with German law before it could be certified.

On 17 November 2021, Bellingcat and The Insider published the first part of their own investigation into the so-called Wagnergate affair.

Elsewhere on the European Union's eastern flank, the Belarus border crisis intensified. On 16 November 2021, migrants at a temporarily closed checkpoint in Kuźnica, Poland, threw stones at Polish border guards and tried to destroy the fence. The guards responded with water cannons and tear gas, and Poland's ministry accused the Belarusian military of aiding the attacks. On 17 November 2021, Estonia summoned 1,700 reservists for a snap drill that included installing a 40-kilometre razor wire barrier along its border with Russia.

Further afield, fifteen Armenian soldiers were killed and twelve captured in border clashes with Azerbaijani forces on 16 November 2021, before a Russian-brokered ceasefire took effect at 19:00 local time.