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.
This year’s top three “men of the year” include Pope Francis, Vladimir Putin, and Edward Snowden. But if the “people who made history in 2013” were to be chosen, it should be the actual people—those Ukrainians who have gathered in the Kiev Independence Square.
The Russian-Ukrainian economic agreements look like Putin’s victory, but the Kremlin will have to deal with an array of powerful opponents. The battle for Ukraine has entered a new stage.
Not only in Russia where ideologists use the issue of homosexual rights as a dividing line between the East and the West, but in some other post-communist states as well the European agenda on gay and lesbian rights is not shared by the majority of population.
Viktor Yanukovych is not ready to step back from the struggle for monopolistic power. His game with the West has only one purpose for him—to trade less humiliating conditions for surrender to the Kremlin.
The protests in Ukraine are a warning to all post-Soviet authoritarian states that the same thing may occur at any time in their countries and are likely to serve as a pretext for the authorities in Russia and in Central Asia to tighten their control.
The protesters in Kiev have a real chance of ushering in a more democratic system. If taking sides with them means taking a stance against Russia’s Vladimir Putin, so be it.
Integrating Ukraine would have been a terrible deal for Russia. On the other hand, if the EU were to help Ukraine become more modern, Russia would be a net beneficiary.
If Europe decides to venture into Ukraine, then it should seriously invest in Ukraine, economically, financially, and politically. As for Russia, it would be better off to continue its policy of non-interference that it is officially maintaining now.
Ukraine has no choice but to make a deal with the EU, but the Europeans will need a long-term strategy to manage relations with Kiev.
Neither the opposition leaders nor President Yanukovych know how how hard they can push back as they struggle to find a solution to rising tensions in Ukraine.