Maria Belyak's Blog

Russia’s gas disputes with Ukraine in 2006 and 2009 that led to the disruption of supplies to several member states, its conflict with Georgia in 2008 and constant disagreements with the West over the situation with civil and political rights had elevated the mistrust between Brussels and Moscow to an unprecedented level, and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, serious as it has been, was merely a trigger that opened Pandora’s box of antagonisms that both sides had been harbouring for quite some time. The question that ought to be asked though is whether the Strategic Partnership Agreement failed because of the systemic unresolved problems in Russia-EU relations that have been accumulating over the years or due to its framework that was unworkable from the start, and the answer is that it is both.