Carnegie Moscow Center
The EU and Ukraine have suspended provisional application of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) until the end of 2015. Though their decision might look like Putin’s victory, this conclusion is not obvious. It is high time to stop viewing Ukraine through the prism of Russia policy.
The apparently long-term rupture of Russia’s relations with the West offers an opportunity to China to enhance its already close relationship with the Kremlin and thus turn the global geopolitical balance in its favor.
Far-right extremists appear to be active on both sides of the Ukrainian conflict. Amid the mounting array of problems facing President Poroshenko, far-rights are only likely to add fuel to the fire.
With tensions running high and diplomacy struggling to find a way out of the Ukraine crisis, inflammatory rhetoric violates the first rule of foreign policy: do no harm.
Europe’s and the United States’ principal challenge for the coming years is to develop a new strategy for dealing with Russia. This strategy will have to be built on a realistic understanding of Russia as it is, rather than on what the West would like it to be and hopes it will one day become.
Berlin is critical to any future settlement of the Ukraine crisis. It is too difficult to reach a deal on the settlement, but the absence of any deal deemed minimally acceptable to all sides would steer Europe toward an abyss.
NATO leaders are gathering for a much-anticipated summit near the Welsh capital. Can they convince observers that they appreciate the scale of the challenges facing the alliance?
In the short term, Belarus benefits from the Ukrainian crisis and the stand-off between the West and Russia. However, the worry in Minsk is that Ukraine may yet collapse, dragging Russia along with it.
The world is getting used to the Ukrainian conflict and the confrontation between Russia and the West. If Moscow and the Western countries start to consider this state of affairs the new norm, the consequences may be quite unappealing.
Two decades after the debate about NATO enlargement pitted “NATO-firsters” against “Russia-firsters,” both sides have had reasons to say, “I told you so.” And they did.