Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Ukrainian government’s suspension of the EU association process has come as a bombshell to many. However, it is Russia, ironically, who needs to be wary of this decision.
Ten days before the Eastern Partnership Vilnius Summit, Ukraine still has to prove it will pursue reforms. Tymoshenko’s fate complicates matters.
The experiment of a peaceful power transfer in Georgia, if successful, will determine more than just the country’s future. It will reveal the possible trajectory of other post-Soviet states that will attempt to move toward an open society.
Ukraine’s trajectory in the coming months and years will serve as a test of Russia’s global role and how far the West is prepared to expand its influence.
A pro-European Ukraine would have huge advantages for Poland and the rest of the EU. But it would also have broader consequences for Eastern Europe’s complex web of interests.
Berlin is urging Kiev to reconsider its treatment of the imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko. But if Angela Merkel pushes too far, Russia will be the winner.
Ukraine will most probably sign an association agreement with the European Union. This is good news for Russia, including Vladimir Putin—although he would emphatically disagree.
The Ukrainian elite has reached consensus on what it does not want—it does not want to be suffocated by the Kremlin’s embrace. For Putin the growing readiness of Ukraine to turn to Europe despite the formidable costs of this decision is a real disaster: his Eurasian Union cannot be a serious entity without the second large Slavic state limping along.
For Vladimir Putin, seeing Ukraine moving away from Russia and leaning toward the EU is unnatural, even perverse.
After abandoning the Soviet Union, Russia prolonged and reproduced the same basic system, but without communism. In comparison, Ukraine is on the positive side of the process of taking shape as a state and a nation.