Last month, in Brussels, Ukraine’s newly elected President Petro Poroshenko signed an association agreement with the European Union. This was the same agreement his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, declined last November, triggering mass demonstrations in Kiev, Yanukovych’s flight from the country and the ongoing conflict with Russia over Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions. Poroshenko pointedly signed the agreement using Yanukovych’s pen. While integration with the EU has long been unpopular in Ukraine’s contested east and in the Russian-annexed Crimea, the mood in the country’s west is far more enthusiastic. Western Ukraine, a loosely defined area centered on the major city of [...]
Last week, three former Soviet republics—Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova—signed association agreements with the European Union. All three countries contain breakaway territories that Russia either effectively controls or directly supports. While the world was riveted by Russia’s war with Georgia in 2008, and the crisis over Ukraine’s eastern regions continues to make headlines, far less attention has been paid to the case of Moldova. On the country’s eastern edge, between the Dniester River and the border with Ukraine, sits Transnistria, a self-declared state home to about 500,000 people of mostly Slavic descent that announced its independence during the collapse of the [...]
How to best explain Vladimir Putin’s zigzags on Ukraine? Over the past few months, spokesmen and leading officials have confidently made statements about Russian policy only to have the Russian leader suddenly change course. It can be quite confusing for analysts and commentators to assess Russia’s true intentions—and makes Putin look dangerously unpredictable. Putin’s long-term goals are clear: to prevent Ukraine’s full integration into the Euro-Atlantic world; to preserve some semblance of Ukraine’s former position as a neutral intermediary and buffer between Russia and the West; and to retain Russia’s special relationship with the country, particularly its southern and eastern [...]
