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34 Beyond Ukraine. EU and Russia in Search of a New Relation As Mearsheimer noted, The EU, too, has been marching eastward. In May 2008, it unveiled its Eastern Partnership initiative, a program to foster prosperity in such countries as Ukraine and integrate them into the EU economy. Not surprisingly, Russian leaders view the plan as hostile to their country’s interests. This past February, before Viktor Yanukovych was forced to flee, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the EU of trying to create a ‘sphere of influence’ in eastern Europe. In the eyes of Russian leaders, EU expansion is a Trojan horse for NATO expansion 10 . In 2008 the decision of some European countries (among them France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy) to recognize the independence of Kosovo was strongly opposed by Moscow, worried about the possible consequences on Caucasian secessionism. Then, at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, the United States proposed, with the support of Poland and Great Britain, the opening of the Membership Action Plan to Ukraine and Georgia. Some major countries of ‘old Europe’ – especially Germany and France, but also Italy and Spain – succeeded in preventing this dangerous step. In the aftermath of this summit Anatol Lieven observed that the Bush administration’s push for an immediate offer of a NATO membership action plan to Georgia and Ukraine at the NATO summit in Bucharest has been blocked, which is good […] it is hard to see what conceivable rational calculation could support the extension of NATO membership to two new countries, one of them (Georgia) involved in unsolved civil war, and the other (Ukraine) with a population a large majority of which opposes NATO membership. And this is called ‘spreading democracy’? 11 . The question of NATO expansion eastwards was aggravated by the fact that in 2008 Poland and the Czech Republic agreed to the request to host on their territories the US anti-missile system. The worst moment of the relationship between Russia and the EU (as 10 J. Mearsheimer (2004). 11 A. Lieven, “Three Faces of Infantilism: NATO’s Bucharest Summit”, in National Interest, 4 April 2008, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17298.
EU-Russia: What Went Wrong? 35 well as the US) before today’s Ukrainian crisis was reached in August 2008, with the short but dangerous Russian-Georgian war. At the end of the conflict, Russia recognized the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, this way contradicting its previous policy of rejection of all forms of political separatism. The Russian-Georgian war of August was indeed “… the largest crisis to date in Russia’s relationship with the West; some have even come to realize that the Georgian war of 2008 may be the most significant challenge to European Security since the Cold War’s end” 12 . Russia and the post-Soviet space From the Russian point of view, the key feature of the first post- Soviet decade has been the persistent and largely successful attempt by the United States and the European Union to penetrate inside the geopolitical vacuum created by the collapse of the USSR. At least since 1993, Moscow has consistently challenged this policy of western expansion, opposing a quite different vision, stating its specific interests and priorities, claiming in particular: a) the functions of peacekeeping and defense of national minorities, in particular Russian-speaking, throughout the so called ‘near abroad’ 13 ; b) the maintenance of stability in the entire territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the formation of a band of security along the Russian borders; c) a special role within the CIS 14 . 12 S.E. Cornell, J. Popjanevski, N. Nilsson, Russia’s War in Georgia: Causes and Implications for Georgia and the World, Policy Paper, August 2008, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Silk Road Study Program, http://www.silkroadstudies.org/resources/pdf/SilkRoadPapers/2008_08_PP_CornellPopjanevski_Nil lson_Russia-Georgia.pdf. 13 M. Rywkin, “Russia and the Near Abroad Under Putin”, American Foreign Policy Interests, no. 25, 2003, pp. 3-12; A. Kortunov, Russia and the Near Abroad: Looking for a Model Relationship, National Defense University, 1999, http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Books/Books_1999/US Russian Partnership July 99/usrp7.html. 14 D. Danilov, Russia’s Search for an International Mandate in Transcaucasia, in B. Coppetiers (ed.), Contested Borders in the Caucasus, Bruxelles, 1995, http://poli.vub.ac.be/publi/ContBorders/eng/contents.htm.
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