beyondukraine.euandrussiainsearchofanewrelation

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58 Beyond Ukraine. EU and Russia in Search of a New Relation alliance stopped short of making Russia a full partner, in the absence of a comprehensive re-discussion of the 1989-1990 settlement hopes that the ‘reset’ could resolve persisting tension and overcome reciprocal diffidence rapidly proved misplaced. The 2013 crisis and its consequences: which way forward? While the ‘reset’ proved an inadequate remedy to reverse confrontational dynamics, the Euromaidan protest dramatically worsened relations between the alliance and Moscow. As in the http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/afet/dv/201/20100 6/20100622_russianprop_en.pdf. See also M. Menkiszak, “Russian Policy Towards NATO in a Broader European Security Context”, in R.N. McDermott, B. Nygren, C. Vendil Pallin (eds.), The Russian Armed Forces in Transition: Economic, Geopolitical and Institutional Uncertainties, London and New York, Routledge, 2011, pp. 73-92; M. De Haas, Russia’s Foreign Security Policy in the 21st Century: Putin, Medvedev and Beyond, London and New York, Routledge, 2010.
After Maidan: Re-Starting NATO-Russia Relations 59 early 2000s, when the ‘color revolutions’ sparked deeply conflicting reactions, events in Ukraine were viewed in the West and Russia in almost opposite images. Although in his inaugural speech new NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted that NATO does not seek confrontation with Moscow 31 ; the Kremlin perceived Western support for the Euromaidan demonstrators as a threat to its endeavors to regain a grip on former Soviet republics through Eurasian integration projects, while the alliance viewed it as an opportunity to hammer a further nail in the coffin of Russian hegemonic ambitions over the post-Soviet space. Whereas Moscow accused the West of masterminding the Euromaidan ‘coup d’état’ – as the Kremlin termed it –, it rapidly secured control of the Crimean peninsula, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet was based, on the grounds of protecting Crimea’s largely Russian population – a move that for many Russians was simply the rectification of a Soviet-era internal border and one that carried the overwhelming endorsement of the people of the peninsula 32 . The Kremlin also provided vital support to the separatist revolts in the Donbass region, asserting Russia’s historical ties to the area and referring to Eastern Ukrainian districts north of the Black Sea, including the towns of Donetsk, Luhansk, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk, as ‘Novorossiya’ or ‘New Russia’ 33 . As an immediate reaction to the ‘Russian aggression’, in April 2014 NATO decided to suspend all practical civilian and military cooperation with Moscow, although the dialogue in the NRC 31 http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_113488.htm. Also Andres Fogh Rasmussen had confirmed, on his first speech as secretary general at the Carnegie Endowment in Brussels, that relations with Russia remain a priority for the alliance. See A.F. Rasmussen, “NATO and Russia: A new Beginning”, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_57640.htm. 32 “What next in Russia’s ‘near abroad’?”, The Quarterly Review, April 2015, http://www.quarterly-review.org/?p=4084. At the end of March 2014 Moscow unilaterally terminated the 2010 Kharkiv agreements with Ukraine that extended the status of its naval facilities in Crimea until 2042. See “State Duma approves denunciation of Russian-Ukrainian agreements on Black Sea Fleet”, http://tass.ru/en/russia/725964. 33 A. Taylor, ‘‘‘Novorossiya’, the latest historical concept to worry about in Ukraine”, The Washington Post, 18 April 2014.
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