This is a legacy website featuring a collection of work by the Carnegie Endowment’s global network of scholars on topics including Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and the post-Soviet states. This site is a product of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington, D.C. For more recent work by Carnegie scholars in this field, please visit Carnegie Politika.
Russia certainly pursues its interests in Ukraine, as does the United States, but the actual forces engaged there are the locals. The victorious Maidan has proven both unwilling and powerless to bridge or stitch together the fault lines which have emerged.
After the May 25 poll, a new president of Ukraine will hardly inaugurate stability. One can only hope that Ukraine decides its future before it turns into a burnt-out case.
After the end of the Cold War, the West neglected the task of solving the “Russia problem” through integration. Trying to solve it now through economic warfare is not going to work.
The current situation in Ukraine has intensified the long-simmering debate in Finland about joining NATO.
Strong Japanese-Russian relations are economically beneficial and a strategic counterbalance against China’s influence. But the Ukraine crisis and Japan’s U.S. loyalties could have damaging effects.
The European Union continues to be in the back seat of a process that threatens Ukraine and which fundamentally affects the EU’s relations with Moscow.
If Ukraine is allowed to break up, or made to do so, Russia and the West will spin into a confrontation from which both will emerge the losers. Both sides need to keep Ukraine whole.
Sunday’s events put Ukraine on the brink of civil war. However, there is still a chance to prevent the worst, but it can only be used when those calling political shots inside and outside Ukraine rise to their responsibility.
Moldova’s government wants association with the EU, but is committed to the “reunification of Moldova” by means of “re-integration” of Transnistria. The reality, however, is that Moldova can be made whole only if it decided to turn east rather than west.
For the U.S. public and its political establishment, Russia is back as an adversary. Having taken on U.S. power, the Russian state will need to be very smart—and very good—to withstand the confrontation.