Can Mars and Venus Talk About Ukraine? - Carnegie Moscow Center

Can Mars and Venus Talk About Ukraine? - Carnegie Moscow Center:

"Russia and the European Union have never admitted that they have a problem. Unlike NATO, the EU has no history of hostility with Moscow. Economic integration and good neighborly relations are hard to dislike. In line with some Americans, much of the Russian elite regard Brussels with faint contempt: a project built on renouncing force and sharing sovereignty does simply not fit the Russian world-view.

Now confrontation of some kind looks inevitable. The issue, of course, is the struggle for the soul—or at least the political-economic model—of Ukraine, and to a greater or lesser degree, the other five Eastern European countries of the so-called Eastern Partnership.

At the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in November, the Ukrainians are likely to be offered an EU Association Agreement and the prospect of deeper European economic integration. But there will be strings attached—one of which is that the government in Kiev will be told that the deal is incompatible with Vladimir Putin’s Eurasian Customs Union. Armenia is facing the same dilemma on a smaller scale."

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