Yulia Tymoshenko’s hunger strike to protest her alleged assault in the prison where she is serving a sentence on charges of abuse of power returned the former prime minister to the center of growing tensions between Ukraine and the European Union.
Her case has further damaged already strained ties between the EU and Ukraine, a member of the Eastern Partnership initiative that the EU launched in 2009, in part to promote human rights in six post-Soviet states. In addition to Ukraine, the other participating states are Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova.
For Nicu Popescu and Jana Kobzova, both experts on Russia and Europe at the European Council on Foreign Relations, the tensions over Ukraine’s treatment of its former prime minister highlight the limits to each side’s leverage over the other’s behavior.