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.
The “chocolate king” turned president is in no sweet position. More sweat is expected from Ukrainians as Poroshenko and the other key players must make hard choices.
The May 25 presidential vote has marked the end of the first phase of the Ukraine crisis, which will continue to reshape the global strategic landscape. For Russia important result of the crisis is pivot to Asia.
The elections in Ukraine demonstrate that Ukrainians have decisively chosen to turn toward Europe.
Even as relations sour between Russia and Ukraine, Russian-Ukrainian defense-industrial cooperation remains very important for both countries. They both stand to lose if it wanes.
The message in Moscow is that Ukraine has been taken over by “Fascists” and neo-Nazis: if the enemies are Fascists, then all means for combatting them are acceptable.
Germany is Europe’s sole emerging power, and potentially a power in Eurasia, and Ukraine is a good place to start working toward its new role. For starters, Germany needs to stop thinking of Ukraine as a U.S.-Russian issue, and assume responsibility there on behalf of the EU as a whole.
Since the 1990s, warnings from Russian liberals that Western pressure would push Russia toward China have failed to materialize. Now, however, faced with U.S.-led geopolitical pressure in Eastern Europe and East Asia, Russia and China are likely to cooperate more closely.
If the Kremlin allies with China too closely, it will not only estrange Russia from most of Asian countries, but also may provoke China’s appetite to gobble the newly-born child of Russia, the Eurasian Union.
Putin looks like he will continue to ride the tide he has set into motion for the time being. But amidst his tactical successes the signs of a looming strategic defeat can be already seen.
Russia may be the only side that can achieve its goals in Ukraine because it actually has a clear objective: federalization of the country.