... and in part due to lack of progress on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine — will it eventually prove possible for the U.S., Europeans and Russia to wind down trade and other sanctions that generally hurt all sides, even if unevenly?
Given the negative Russian reaction to the EU Eastern Partnership, and the expansion of EU influence into post-Soviet states, including Ukraine and Belarus, what if EU took steps to bring Russia into a new form of EU partnership? Could the EU and Russia forge new trade and monetary arrangements, for example?
Could both Kaliningrad and Crimea become free trade areas, yet under Russian ...
RIAC Report #22, 2015
The Eastern Partnership policy that triggered the Ukrainian crisis has provided ample opportunity to reflect on Russia–EU relations, alongside with evaluating cooperation between Russia and the Visegrad Group countries (also called the Visegrad Four or V4).
The Visegrad Four have taken on responsibility for the eastward enlargement of the European Union having ...
... Baltic region may well become the next hot spot
For many months, the conflict in Ukraine and related sanctions have remained the key issue discussed by politicians,... ... International Security Problems, shares his views on the impact of the sanctions on Russia and the potential resolution of the situation in eastern Ukraine as well as offers... ... cope with this for the past three months.
What do you think of the prospects for the Eastern Partnership?
The Eastern Partnership initiative entails a geopolitical repartition...
Latent tensions have loomed before civil strife actually irrupted in Ukraine amid deep-rooted political uncertainties. That claims upon the Crimean peninsula would be eventually raised by Putin’s Russia, concentrating troops at the borders and effecting what appeared to be a military invasion, followed by a political validation ... ..., Poland, which has maintained a vivid strategic interest in the Black Sea and the wider post- Soviet spectrum, advanced the Eastern Partnership. Both initiatives have attempted to solidify strategic and geopolitical interests whether one gazes at Romania’s ...
... setback the other. As long as this is the case, tensions will escalate. At one point of time, it looked as if we were getting out of this zero-sum game, though now it seems that we are going back into it. Unfortunately I do not have a solution!
voiceofrussia.com
The Future of Eastern Partnership
Ukraine and Georgia are regularly compared and contrasted. What links these two countries and what does Ukraine mean for Georgia?
Of course Ukraine and Georgia have a lot of in common and they have been very close for different historical reasons. They ...
... momentum to the swinging of the ‘Ukrainian pendulum’. The false ‘Europe or Russia’ choice offered by the European Union further polarized Ukrainian society. Two alternative structures of the region were set against one another: the Eastern Partnership under the auspices of the European Union and the EurAsEC Customs Union. Russia could not remain an onlooker and managed to convince Yanukovych that signing the Association Agreement with the European Union was not good for Ukraine. Thereafter the crisis escalated, not least because Western countries supported the Maidan protesters in violation of all international norms.
What do we have today? The new Kiev ‘government’ has little legitimacy and is rejected by ...
... the West’s hypocrisy, double standards, and mingling in foreign countries; this time, ‘crossing a line’, in Russia’s sphere of interest. We have a Russia-West situation; we have hostility. Yes, it looks like a new ‘Cold War’.... ... huge rise in Putin’s popularity — much like the last time in Georgia. He now has the recipe.
But the situation in Ukraine is bound to escalate. It will not come to a Cold War — but it looks like Putin is dead set on testing the limits....
... unquestionable but who is a realist and not ashamed, or worse, afraid of geopolitics. Someone who will rethink and re-calibrate the Eastern Partnership, acknowledging its geopolitical nature. Someone who can make it fit the new reality shaped partly by a self-assured Russia, protective of its sphere of influence and as disinterested in modernising trade and security cooperation with Europe as ... ... foreign policy toolkit.
Photo: PAP/Paweł Supernak
Fortunately, a change of EU leadership is looming this summer. Even more so, Ukraine’s crisis has been, to an extent, a foreign policy talent-show.
A great candidate for the job could be the current ...
... contest to Russia. But developments seem to be on the way. In light of the happenings of the past few days, Europe may come out of this better than it would have, had things gone another way.
It has long been known that the talks between the EU and Ukraine should end at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, with the signing of a Free Trade and Association Agreement. It’s been known that such an agreement would be against Russia’s well-articulated geopolitical interests, and that it would much prefer to see its South-Western neighbour join its own regional integration project, the Customs Union. It’s been known that Moscow will deploy every tool to undermine ...
... Vladimir Chizhov
As the Eastern Partnership Summit is approaching, discussions about the foreign political course of Ukraine and its relations with Russia and the European Union are intensifying. How will Kiev’s choice affect relations within the Russia – Ukraine – EU triangle? What is the future of the Eastern Partnership? We discussed these questions during the presentation of “Four Scenarios for Russia-Germany Relations” with Permanent Representative of Russia to the European Union and member of RIAC,
Vladimir Chizhov
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Vladimir Alekseevich,...
