Carnegie Moscow Center
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.
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.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who was the first Polish non-communist prime minister, died on October 28. He will be remembered as a Man Who Helped to Open a New Era—and not only for Poland.
Several years after the Polish presidential plane crash and the initial Russian-Polish rapprochement, the process of reconciliation has visibly stagnated. Moscow should again step forward and give this process a new lease on life.
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.
A special arrangement may be devised for the Eastern Partnership countries so that they can associate with both Russia and the EU. It would effectively serve to form a loose economic alliance between the EU and the Eurasian Union tied together by the common denominator: the Eastern Partnership nations.
Merkel’s rule, apparently, means a break in Germany’s life due to the lack of new political elites and leaders.
For Vladimir Putin, seeing Ukraine moving away from Russia and leaning toward the EU is unnatural, even perverse.