Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

Notes

1

Prokofiev’s music was considered ‘formalist’ by Communist Party ideologists. For this reason and because of his long period of exile, he did his work as something of a pariah, but he was never arrested or harmed. In a striking coincidence, Prokofiev died on the same day (5 March 1953) as the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

2

One of many eye-opening video presentations of the cyborgs’ activity may be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pf3HjUwtWU&feature=youtu.be.

3

We are aware that up to a point gains and losses are in the eye of the beholder, that in the real world they may come in mixed packages, and that even individuals who agree on objectives and strategy may disagree about the success or failure of actions they have taken collectively. Throughout this book, we do our best to make detached and objective assessments of gains and losses, while acknowledging that others, particularly those directly involved in the process, might use different metrics.

4

Parsing through the various explanations is complicated by the wide range of justifications put forth by the participants themselves, particularly the leaders of Russia.

5

Serhy Yekelchyk, The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 4.

6

Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), p. vii.

7

John Mearsheimer, ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 5, September/October 2014, pp. 82, 84.

8

Andrei Tsygankov, ‘Vladimir Putin’s Last Stand: the Sources of Russia’s Ukraine Policy’, Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 31, no. 4, July 2015, p. 280.

9

Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015), p. 255.

10

Kathryn Stoner and Michael McFaul, ‘Who Lost Russia (This Time)? Vladimir Putin’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, Summer 2015, p. 175.

11

Ibid., p. 181.

12

Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer, Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post-Cold War Order (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), pp. xix, 162.

1

Phrase taken from the foundational argument about geo-economics in Edward N. Luttwak, ‘From Geopolitics to Geo-Economics: Logic of Conflict, Grammar of Commerce’, National Interest, no. 20, Summer 1990, pp. 17–23.

2

Lest this triad sound overly rationalistic, we concede that non-rational variables – such as arrogance, bureaucratic red tape, carelessness and sloth – also entered into the picture we describe. We are grateful to Neil MacFarlane for drawing our attention to this point. Our take, though, is that these factors were at work on all sides and did not tip the outcome in any one direction.

3

‘Text of Havel’s Speech to Congress’, 22 February 1990, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/02/22/text-of-havels-speech-to-congress/df98e177-778e-4c26-bd96-980089c4fcb2/.

4

James Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), p. 158.

5

Ibid., p. 247.

6

George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf, 1998), pp. 205–6.

7

Gorbachev quoted in Milan Svec, ‘The Prague Spring: 20 Years Later’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 55, no. 5, Summer 1988 , pp. 981–1001.

8

Mary Elise Sarotte, 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 91. Interestingly this heroic multinationalism, as Sarotte tags it, was also the dream of the socialistic dissidents who helped bring down East German Communism, and of liberal oppositionists in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

9

Within the Western alliance, Margaret Thatcher’s British government and, less so, François Mitterrand’s government in Paris had reservations about reunification but went along with it.

10

The sequence in which this was done was quite complex. For the details, see Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘Not One Inch Eastward? Bush, Baker, Kohl, Genscher, Gorbachev, and the Origin of Russian Resentment Toward NATO Enlargement in February 1990’, Diplomatic History, vol. 34, no. 1, January 2010, pp. 119–40.

11

Gorbachev ran the proposition of the Soviet Union joining NATO by George Bush later that month and in July, this time severing it from German unification. See Sarotte, 1989, chap. 5; Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 251–2; Philip Zelikow and Condoleezza Rice, Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 280; James Baker, ‘Russia in NATO?’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 1, Winter 2002, p. 102.

12

Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, pp. 300–1.

13

‘Charter of Paris for a New Europe’, 1990, http://www.osce.org/mc/39516?download=true.

14

Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy, pp. 173, 196.

15

Bill Keller, ‘Gorbachev, in Finland, Disavows Any Right of Regional Intervention’, New York Times, 26 October 1989, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/26/world/gorbachev-in-finland-disavows-any-right-of-regional-intervention.html.

16

Gorbachev and Kissinger quoted in Bennett Kovrig, Of Walls and Bridges: The United States & Eastern Europe (New York: New York University Press, 1991), p. 360.

17

Stephen Kux, ‘Neutrality and New Thinking’, in Roger E. Kanet, Deborah Nutter Miner and Tamara J. Resler (eds), Soviet Foreign Policy in Transition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 110–13. The papers in this collection were written for an academic conference in 1990. By the time they came out, there was of course no such thing as Soviet foreign policy.

18

The treaty restoring Austria, under occupation since 1945, as a sovereign state was signed by the Allied powers and the Austrian government in May 1955. The Soviets made it a condition of signing that neutrality be written into the constitution, which was done by act of parliament five months later. Kissinger specifically suggested an Austrian-type arrangement for Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland. See Gerald B.H. Solomon, The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990–1997: Blessings of Liberty (Washington DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1998), p. 8. For broader discussion, see Richard Ned Lebow, ‘Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire’s Demise and the International System’, in Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen (eds), International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 155–6.

19

Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, ‘Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the U.S. Offer to Limit NATO Expansion’, International Security, vol. 40, no. 4, Spring 2016, pp. 7–44; Baker quotation at p. 30. A well-argued alternative interpretation is Mark Kramer, ‘The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 2, April 2009, pp. 39–61.

20

‘It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.’ Maxim Korshunov, ‘Mikhail Gorbachev: I Am against All Walls’, Russia Beyond the Headlines, 16 October 2014, http://rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbachev_i_am_against_all_walls_40673.html.

21

Shifrinson, ‘Deal or No Deal?’, p. 40. Shifrinson also documents (p. 38) that some working-level officials in the Department of State and Pentagon penned briefs as soon as October 1990 about the desirability of keeping NATO’s door ajar and ‘not [giving] the East Europeans the impression that NATO is forever a closed club’.

22

Sarotte, 1989, p. 200.

23

Ibid., pp. 200–1.

24

Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow about NATO Expansion’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 93, no. 5, September/October 2014, p. 97. Sarotte has written that this was done ‘by design’. We agree that one effect of the institutional design adopted at the time was to place Russia on Europe’s periphery, but we do not see this as the intended result.

25

Along with Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan were founding members. Georgia did not join until 1993.

26

The three Baltic states had been independent countries between the world wars. The United States had never recognised their annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940.

27

Belarus and Ukraine had formally been members of the UN since 1945, despite their subordination to the Soviet government in Moscow.

28

Strobe Talbott, Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy (New York: Random House, 2002), p. 94.

29

Ibid.

30

The report was published in ‘Perspektivy rasshireniya NATO i interesy Rossii: Doklad Sluzhby vneshnei razvedki’, Izvestiya, 25 November 1993. For a summary, see Steven Erlanger, ‘Russia Warns NATO on Expanding East’, New York Times, 26 November 1993.

31

For the September letter, see Roger Cohen, ‘Yeltsin Opposes Expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe’, New York Times, 2 October 1993, http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/02/world/yeltsin-opposes-expansion-of-nato-in-eastern-europe.html.

32

‘Interv’yu c ministrom inostrannykh del Rossiiskoi Federatsii Andreem Kozyrevem’, Rossiiskaya gazeta, 7 December 1993.

33

Quotations from a declassified memo of the conversation at ‘Secretary Christopher’s Meeting with President Yeltsin, 10/22/93, Moscow’, http://cdn.warontherocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Christopher-Yeltsin-1993-MemCon.pdf. See the discussion in James Goldgeier, ‘Promises Made, Promises Broken? What Yeltsin Was Told About NATO in 1993 and Why It Matters’, War on the Rocks, 12 July 2016, http://warontherocks.com/2016/07/promises-made-promises-broken-what-yeltsin-was-told-about-nato-in-1993-and-why-it-matters/.

34

‘The President’s News Conference With Visegrad Leaders in Prague’, 12 January 1994, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=49832.

35

James M. Goldgeier, Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 20.

36

Stephen Sestanovich, ‘Could It Have Been Otherwise?’, American Interest, vol. 10, no. 5, 2015, http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/04/14/could-it-have-been-otherwise/.

37

Goldgeier, Not Whether But When, pp. 169–70. Exhaustive accounts of the domestic politics of NATO enlargement (and the roles of politicians, business interests, think tanks and ethnic lobbies) can be found in these books: Ronald D. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2002); George W. Grayson, Strange Bedfellows: NATO Marches East (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1999).

38

Quotations from Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door, p. 192; Evgenii Primakov, Vstrechi na perekrestkakh (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2015), pp. 221–2.

39

Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, ‘The Unravelling of the Cold War Settlement’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 6, December 2009–January 2010, p. 51.

40

See the summary in Maksim Yusin, ‘Moskve ne udalos’ provesti perestroiku SBSE’, Izvestiya, 12 October 1994.

41

Primakov, Vstrechi na perekrestkakh, p. 221.

42

‘Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation Signed in Paris, France’, 27 May 1997, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm.

43

Hiski Haukkala, ‘Russian Reactions to the European Neighborhood Policy’, Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 55, no. 5, September 2008, pp. 40–8.

44

Sestanovich, ‘Could It Have Been Otherwise?’

45

Critics also brought up the central role of Russia and Boris Yeltsin in dismantling the Soviet regime. George F. Kennan in 1998 declared that expansion of the Alliance over Russia’s objections was ‘turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime’. Quoted in Thomas L. Friedman, ‘Foreign Affairs; Now a Word from X’, New York Times, 2 May 1998.

46

The comment by Goldgeier in 1999 sums up this miscalculation: ‘Once the NATO–Russia Founding Act was signed… it was difficult for critics to make the case that Russia found enlargement unacceptable.’ Goldgeier, Not Whether But When, p. 172.

47

See Milada Anna Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration After Communism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

48

For more on the role of external powers here, see Alexander Cooley, Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

49

In the European Union, for example, the French, British and Italian economies are roughly two-thirds the size of the German. In East Asia, China and Japan are about equal in economic strength. In the Western Hemisphere, the US economy, in current prices, is about seven times the size of the Brazilian economy and nine times the size of the Canadian.

50

David A. Lake, ‘The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Russian Empire: A Theoretical Interpretation’, in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds), The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 54, 55.

51

Nunn–Lugar funds were also used to dispose of chemical and biological weapons. Russia participated in the programme until 2015. The negotiations with the Ukrainians are described in Graham Allison, ‘What Happened to the Soviet Superpower’s Nuclear Arsenal?’, Discussion Paper 2012, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 2012, http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/3%2014%2012%20Final%20What%20Happened%20to%20Soviet%20Arsenals.pdf.

52

From the full text in Russian at ‘Strategicheskii kurs Rossii s gosudarstvami – uchastnikami Sodruzhestva Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv’, 14 September 1995, http://www.mid.ru/foreign_policy/official_documents/-/asset_publisher/CptICkB6BZ29/content/id/427752 (italics added). President Putin in 2005 nullified two minor articles of the decree, leaving the rest of it intact.

53

Quoted in Talbott, Russia Hand, p. 80.

54

Yevgeny Ambartsumov, quoted in Emil Pain, ‘Mezhnatsional’nye konflikty v politicheskoi igre’, Nezavisimaya gazeta, 10 July 1992.

55

Quoted in ‘Chto bylo na nedele’, Kommersant, 6 March 1993.

56

For an early assessment, see Fiona Hill and Pamela Jewett, ‘“Back in the USSR”: Russia’s Intervention in the Internal Affairs of the Former Soviet Republics and the Implications for United States Policy Toward Russia’, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, January 1994, http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/files/Back%20in%20the%20USSR%201994.pdf.

57

Christoph Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 2007), p. 141.

58

‘Remarks in a Town Meeting with Russian Citizens in Moscow’, 14 January 1994, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-1994-01-24/pdf/WCPD-1994-01-24-Pg67.pdf.

59

For details on activities in Transnistria, see Rebecca Chamberlain-Creanga and Lyndon K. Allin, ‘Acquiring Assets, Debts, and Citizens: Russia and the Micro-Foundations of Transnistria’s Stalemated Conflict’, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 18, no. 4, Fall 2010, pp. 329–56.

60

Daniel W. Drezner, The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 131–248. See also Margarita Balmaceda, ‘Gas, Oil, and Linkages between Domestic and Foreign Policies: The Case of Ukraine’, Europe–Asia Studies, vol. 50, no. 2, March 1998, pp. 257–86; Tor Bukkvoll, ‘Off the Cuff Politics—Explaining Russia’s Lack of a Ukraine Strategy’, Europe–Asia Studies, vol. 53, no. 8, December 2001, pp. 1141–57; Margarita Balmaceda, Politics of Energy Dependency: Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania Between Domestic Oligarchs and Russian Pressure (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013).

61

John P. Willerton and Mikhail A. Beznosov, ‘Russia’s Pursuit of Its Eurasian Security Interests: Weighing the CIS and Alternative Bilateral–Muiltilateral Arrangemnets’, in Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds), The CIS, the EU and Russia: The Challenges of Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 50.

62

Taras Kuzio, ‘Geopolitical Pluralism in the CIS: The emergence of GUUAM’, European Security, vol. 9, no. 2, Summer 2000, p. 84.

63

Russia and Belarus further muddied the picture by forming a mostly fictional ‘union state’ in 1997.

64

The Ukrainians inserted a clause into the 2003 agreement specifying that the new entity was not to act contrary to their constitution or to the objective of fostering integration with the European Union.

65

Uzbekistan, an original party to the treaty (which was signed in its capital city), withdrew from it in 1999, as did Azerbaijan and Georgia, which had joined in 1993. Uzbekistan was to rejoin in 2006, only to pull out again in 2012.

66

Martha Brill Olcott, Anders Aslund and Sherman W. Garnett, Getting It Wrong: Regional Cooperation and the Commonwealth of Independent States (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1999), pp. 95–6.

67

The eight working groups, for example, largely limited themselves to one annual meeting each, often on the margins of larger gatherings. A number of agreements were never implemented, and others went into effect in only one or several of the member states. Details on the GUAM organisation can be found at http://guam-organization.org/ and more lucidly at a site maintained by one of the GUAM principals, Moldova: http://www.mfa.gov.md/about-guam-en/.

68

Olcott, Aslund and Garnett, Getting It Wrong, p. 208.

69

Jakob Tolstrup, Russia vs. the EU: The Competition for Influence in Post-Soviet States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2013), p. 130.

70

Authors’ interview with a former senior Russian official, December 2015.

71

For Brzezinski’s initial statement to this effect, see Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘The Premature Partnership’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 2, March–April 1994, pp. 67–82.

72

Warren Christopher, ‘NATO PLUS’, Washington Post, 9 January 1994, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/01/09/nato-plus/88b3d1a6-8111-4491-bbf0-e6267b0dae95/?utm_term=.0fe94b86f2ed.

73

William H. Hill, Russia, the Near Abroad, and the West: Lessons from the Moldova–Transdniestria Conflict (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012), p. 36.

74

Ronald Asmus of the RAND Corporation, who would shortly join the Clinton administration, wrote with two fellow enlargement advocates in 1995 that for the time being, ‘The West would prefer to have a Finlandised Ukraine – politically and economically stable and pro-Western, but militarily neutral’. Ronald D. Asmus, Richard L. Kugler and F. Stephen Larrabee, ‘NATO Expansion: The Next Steps’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 37, no. 1, Spring 1995, pp. 7–33.

75

Primakov, Vstrechi na perekrestkakh, p. 371.

76

Steve LeVine, The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 215.

77

Ibid., p. 221. Russian calculations are well laid out in Douglas W. Blum, ‘The Russian–Georgian Crisis and Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan’, PONARS Policy Memo, no. 252, October 2002, http://www.ponarseurasia.org/sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/pm_0252.pdf.

78

Mark Kramer, ‘Ukraine, Russia, and US Policy’, PONARS Policy Memo, no. 91, April 2001, https://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/ponars/pm_0191.pdf.

79

James Goldgeier and Michael McFaul, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia After the Cold War (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), p. 118.

80

‘BBC Breakfast with Frost, Interview: Vladimir Putin’, 5 March 2000, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/transcripts/putin5.mar.txt.

81

Robyn Dixon, ‘With NATO Chief’s Visit to Russia, a Thaw Begins’, Los Angeles Times, 17 February 2000, http://articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/17/news/mn-65412.

82

Authors’ interview with a former senior Russian official, May 2016.

83

Hill, Russia, the Near Abroad, and the West, p. 39.

84

Online records note expenditures on GUAM/GUUAM in fiscal years 2001 and 2002, without giving exact numbers. There is no annotation for 2003, but in fiscal year 2004 there are entries of US$250,000 through Department of State accounts and US$520,000 through the Department of Homeland Security. The 2002 framework agreement can be found at http://guam-organization.org/en/node/461.

85

Hill, Russia, the Near Abroad, and the West, p. xii.

86

‘Vystuplenie na konferentsii Memorial’nogo fonda Dzhavakharlala Neru’, 3 December 2004, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22720.

1

Besides the two small island nations of Malta and Cyprus, all the new EU members were either former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), former communist states in East Central Europe (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) or the Balkans (Slovenia, once a constituent republic of Yugoslavia). NATO took in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania were to accede to the EU in 2007 and Croatia in the Balkans to NATO in 2009 and the EU in 2013.

2

See presentations by Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Chief of the General Staff Valerii Gerasimov at the 3rd annual Moscow Conference on International Security, available at http://mil.ru/mcis/2014.htm. For an English-language summary, see http://eng.mil.ru/files/MCIS_report_catalogue_final_ENG_21_10_preview.pdf.

3

Valerii Gerasimov, ‘Tsennost’ nauki v prognozirovanii’, Voenno-promyshlennyi kur’er, 5 March 2013.

4

As Michael McFaul notes, the foreign democracy-promotion wings of both of the United States’ national political parties were deeply involved in Ukrainian events in 2004: ‘That there were purposive efforts by both IRI [the International Republican Institute] and NDI [the National Democratic Institute] to strengthen Our Ukraine’s [Yushchenko’s party] campaign abilities is without question.’ Michael McFaul, ‘Ukraine Imports Democracy: External Influences on the Orange Revolution’, International Security, vol. 32, no. 2, Fall 2007, p. 74.

5

Lincoln A. Mitchell, The Color Revolutions (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 86.

6

See Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

7

It is conceivable that in Georgia the cosy relationship with the Bush administration actually encouraged nondemocratic behaviour, by leading Saakashvili to think he could mistreat local opponents without objection from external patrons.

8

See, for example, Nicolas Bouchet, ‘Russia and the Democracy Rollback in Europe’, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 26 May 2016, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/russia-and-democracy-rollback-europe.

9

Timothy Colton, ‘Sources and Limits of Russia’s Influence in Post-Soviet Eurasia’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, WA, 3 September 2011, p. 11.

10

Nelli Babayan, ‘The Return of the Empire? Russia’s Counteraction to Transatlantic Democracy Promotion in Its Near Abroad’, Democratization, vol. 22, no. 3, March 2015, pp. 438–58.

11

Andrei Kolesnikov, ‘Obnimai, no proveryai’, Kommersant, 21 March 2005.

12

‘Nachalo vstrechi s prem’er-ministrom Ukrainy Yuliei Timoshenko’, 19 March 2005, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22867.

13

‘Commission Staff Working Paper – European Neighbourhood Policy – Country Report Ukraine {COM(2004)373 Final}’, 12 May 2004, http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/ukraine-enp-country-report.

14

‘Russia – Final Version of the Road Map on the Common Economic Space Agreed at the EU–Russia Summit on 10 May’, 24 May 2005, http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/eu-russia-roadmap-common-economic-space.

15

Jonathan Stern, ‘The Russian–Ukrainian Gas Crisis of January 2006’, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 16 January 2006, p. 6.

16

Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 74.

17

James Sherr, Hard Diplomacy and Soft Coercion: Russia’s Influence Abroad (London: Chatham House, 2013).

18

Marlene Laruelle, ‘The “Russian World”: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination’, Center on Global Interests, May 2015; Sinikukka Saari, ‘Russia’s Post-Orange Revolution Strategies to Increase Its Influence in Former Soviet Republics: Public Diplomacy Po Russkii’, Europe–Asia Studies, vol. 66, no. 1, January 2014, pp. 50–66.

19

Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2012), p. 428.

20

Ronald Asmus, ‘Redrawing (Again) the Map of Europe: A Strategy for Integrating Ukraine into the West’, in Joerg Forbrig and Robin Shepherd (eds), Ukraine after the Orange Revolution: Strengthening European and Transatlantic Commitments (Washington DC: The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2005), p. 90.

21

George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Broadway Books, 2011), p. 430.

22

‘Cheney’s Speech in Lithuania’, 4 May 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/04/world/europe/04cnd-cheney-text.html.

23

In 2006, NATO membership was broadly unpopular among Ukrainians, including in the traditionally pro-Western central and western regions, where 23% supported and 29% opposed, to say nothing of the south and east, traditionally more pro-Russian (7% support for NATO, 77% opposed). Kyiv International Institute of Sociology data cited in Valeriy Khmel’ko, ‘Cherez shcho politykam vdayet’sya rozkolyuvaty Ukrayinu’, Dzerkalo tyzhnya, 23 June 2006, http://gazeta.dt.ua/ARCHIVE/cherez_scho_politikam_vdaetsya_rozkolyuvati_ukrayinu.html.

24

‘Ukraine on the Road to NATO: A Status Report’, 14 February 2006, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 06KIEV604_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06KIEV604_a.html.

25

According to the US Department of State, at least US$2.5 million was spent on GUAM-related projects between the fiscal years 2004 and 2008. See US Government Assistance to and Cooperative Activities with Eurasia, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rpt/c10250.htm.

26

The Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, stationed there under the terms of the ceasefire agreements that ended the conflicts of the early 1990s, were thus not covered by the Istanbul Commitments and remained.

27

Some details may be found in ‘A/S Fried-Poldir Araud on Iran, Kosovo, Georgia, Moldova/CFE, NATO Ministerial’, 31 January 2007, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 07PARIS363_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07PARIS363_a.html; ‘CFE: Germany Pushes for Being Forward-Leaning on A/CFE Ratification at Upcoming Extraordinary Conference’, 4 June 2007, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 07BERLIN1107_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07BERLIN1107_a.html; ‘November 7 HLTF and NRC-ACE Meetings at NATO’, 28 November 2006, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 06USNATO687_a, https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06USNATO687_a.html.

28

‘Poslanie Federal’nomu Sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 26 April 2007, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24203.

29

It should be noted that the CFE treaty contains no suspension clause so the Russian move was of dubious legality.

30

‘DFM Karasin on Ukraine, Georgia, Transnistria, Armenia and Belarus’, 8 February 2008, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 08MOSCOW353_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW353_a.html.

31

Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2012), p. 671.

32

Ronald D. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 117.

33

‘Bush and Yushchenko Remark on Ukraine and Nato’, Washington Post, 1 April 2008, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040101600.html.

34

Radek Sikorski, quoted in Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 674.

35

‘Bucharest Summit Declaration’, 3 April 2008, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm.

36

‘Zayavlenie dlya pressy i otvety na voprosy zhurnalistov po itogam zasedaniya Soveta Rossiya–NATO’, 4 April 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24903.

37

Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 136.

38

‘THE PRESIDENT IN EUROPE; Bush’s Vision: “We Will Not Trade Away the Fate of Free European Peoples”’, New York Times, 16 June 2001.

39

Moreover, the Yalta accords actually guaranteed Poland ‘free elections of governments responsive to the will of the people’, a provision, of course, which Stalin subsequently violated. See Conrad Black, ‘The Yalta Myth’, National Interest, May 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/article/the-yalta-myth-1052.

40

Ibid.

41

Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 146.

42

Ibid., p. 149.

43

‘Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia Report’, September 2009, http://echr.coe.int/Documents/HUDOC_38263_08_Annexes_ENG.pdf.

44

‘Ex-Ambassador of Georgia: Georgian Invasion to Abkhazia Was Prepared in April–May’, Caucasian Knot, 25 November 2008, http://www.eng.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/8765/; International Crisis Group, ‘Georgia and Russia: Clashing over Abkhazia’, Europe Report no. 193, 5 June 2008.

45

According to Asmus, Saakashvili received reports on 7 August that Russia was massing troops on the border and even inside South Ossetia. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 23. See also C.J. Chivers, ‘Georgia Offers Fresh Evidence on War’s Start’, New York Times, 15 September 2008.

46

As Asmus writes, ‘Throughout this period, Russian officials used both front and back diplomatic channels to tell their Western counterparts that their military steps were simply a deterrent to prevent the Georgians from acting rashly and attacking Abkhazia.’ Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 145.

47

For example, Cheney called for granting a MAP in a speech in Italy in September 2008: ‘At Bucharest only five months ago, we considered extending a Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine, but did not do so. But Allies agreed that those nations will be NATO members, and the time to begin their Membership Action Plans, I believe, has come.’ ‘Vice President’s Remarks at the Ambrosetti Forum’, 6 September 2008, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/09/20080906-1.html.

48

‘Ukraine, MAP, and the Georgia–Russia Conflict’, 14 August 2008, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 08USNATO290_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08USNATO290_a.html.

49

Dmitri Trenin, Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011), p. 98.

50

Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World, p. 186.

51

Joe Wood interview in Ben Smith, ‘U.S. Pondered Military Use in Georgia’, Politico, 3 February 2010, http://www.politico.com/story/2010/02/us-pondered-military-use-in-georgia-032487.

52

Dragneva and Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 4. The term ‘normative power’ was first used in Ian Manners, ‘Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?’, Journal of Common Market Studies, vol. 40, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 235–58.

53

‘Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbors {COM(2003) – 104 Final}’, 11 March 2003, http://eeas.europa.eu/enp/pdf/pdf/com03_104_en.pdf.

54

Authors’ interview with Javier Solana, June 2016.

55

Tom Casier, ‘The Clash of Integration Processes? The Shadow Effect of the Enlarged EU on Its Eastern Neighbours’, in Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds), The CIS, the EU and Russia: The Challenges of Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 74.

56

Romano Prodi, ‘Europe and the Mediterranean: Time for Action’, Speech, Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, 26 November 2002, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-02-589_en.htm.

57

These are administered by the CIS Interstate Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification, which has a coordinating body in Minsk. Interestingly, all 12 non-Baltic former Soviet republics, including non-members of the CIS, are represented on the Council. See the Council’s website for more information: http://www.easc.org.by/.

58

‘Joint Statement on EU Enlargement and EU–Russia Relations’ (European Union, 27 April 2004), http://www.enpi-info.eu/library/content/joint-statement-eu-enlargement-and-eu-russia-relations. See also Holger Moroff, ‘EU Policies toward Russia’, in Katlijn Malfliet, Lien Verpoest and Evgeny Vinokurov (eds), The CIS, the EU, and Russia: The Challenges of Integration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

59

‘European Security Strategy: A Secure Europe in a Better World’, 2009, p. 23, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/documents-publications/publications/2009/pdf/european-security-strategy-secure-europe-better-world/.

60

Authors’ interview with Javier Solana.

61

Valentina Pop, ‘EU Expanding Its “Sphere of Influence,” Russia Says’, EUobserver, 21 March 2009, https://euobserver.com/foreign/27827.

62

Constanze Stelzenmüller, ‘Walk – But Learn to Chew the Gum Too. After the Russo–Georgian War of 2008: Transatlantic Approaches to a New Eastern Policy’, paper presented at the 11th Annual Foreign Policy Conference of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Berlin, 27 September 2010, p. 10.

63

Andrei Zagorski, ‘Eastern Partnership from the Russian Perspective’, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, vol. 3, 2011, p. 46, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/ipg/2011-3/05_zagorski.pdf.

64

‘Government Statement Delivered by Chancellor Angela Merkel on the EU’s Eastern Partnership Summit to Be Held on 28/29 November 2013 in Vilnius’, 18 November 2013, https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/ContentArchiv/EN/Archiv17/Regierungsrerkl%C3%A4rung/2013-11-18-merkel-oestl-partnerschaften.html.

65

The timing of the move was apparently due to a push from Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbaev. It came as a surprise to many, including those officials negotiating Russia’s WTO accession, who had to adjust that process to accommodate the new Customs Union.

66

See European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Regional Trade Integration and Eurasian Economic Union’, in Transition Report 2012: Integration Across Borders, 2012, pp. 62–79, http://tr.ebrd.com/tr12/images/downloads/TR12_EN_web_bookmarks3.pdf.

67

Vladimir Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii — budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya segodnya’, Izvestiya, 3 October 2011.

68

Putin’s conception of the Eurasian bloc forming an independent pole in global politics was remarkably similar to the way in which Russian officials talked about their aspirations for Russia.

69

Nursultan Nazarbaev, ‘Evraziiskii Soyuz: ot idei k istorii budushchego’, Izvestiya, 25 October 2011, http://izvestia.ru/news/504908.

70

Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii’.

71

Denis Cenusa et al., ‘Russia’s Punitive Trade Policy Measures towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia’, CEPS Working Document, Centre for European Policy Studies, September 2014, pp. 7–8.

72

See the draft foreign-policy strategy produced for Medvedev, as leaked to the press: ‘O programme effektivnogo ispol’zovaniya na sistemnoi osnove vneshnepoliticheskikh faktorov v tselyakh dolgosrochnogo razvitiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, https://www.hse.ru/data/2010/09/27/1223786940/Foreign_policy_for_modernisation_program.doc.

73

Michael McFaul, ‘Assessing the “Reset”: Past Progress, Future Steps’, Presentation, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/papers/mcfaul20110415.pdf.

74

Michael McFaul, ‘The Russian Economy and US–Russia Relations’, Event Transcript, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/publications/papers/transcript-20110415mcfaul.pdf.

75

‘Joint Statement of the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation in Connection with the Situation in the Kyrgyz Republic’, 24 June 2010, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/us-russia_joint_statement_on_kyrgyzstan.pdf.

76

‘NATO–Russia Council Joint Statement at the Meeting of the NATO–Russia Council Held in Lisbon on 20 November 2010’, 20 November 2010, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_68871.htm.

77

Nikonov quoted in Gregory L. White, ‘In Secret Report, Russia Shifts Westward’, Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2010, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703565804575238291897667152.

78

Samuel Charap and Mikhail Troitskiy, ‘U.S.–Russia Relations in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Transcending the Zero-Sum Game’, Working Group on the Future of US–Russia Relations, September 2011, p. 19, https://futureofusrussiarelations.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/us-russiafuture_working_group_paper_1.pdf.

79

‘Vystuplenie na Konferentsii po voprosam mirovoi politiki’, 8 October 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1659.

80

‘Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s uchastnikami mezhdunarodnogo kluba “Valdai”’, 12 September 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1383.

81

‘Interv’yu Dmitriya Medvedeva rossiiskim telekanalam’, 31 August 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/1276.

82

‘Remarks by Vice President Biden at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy’, 7 February 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-vice-president-biden-45th-munich-conference-security-policy.

83

‘The Draft of the European Security Treaty’, 29 November 2009, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/6152.

84

Hillary Rodham Clinton, ‘Remarks on the Future of European Security’, 29 January 2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/136273.htm.

85

‘ASD/ISA Vershbow’s September 30 Visit to Moscow: Bilateral Cooperation, Iran, Afghanistan, Missile Defense, Military/Defense Cooperation’, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 09MOSCOW2529_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW2529_a.html.

86

State Department cable cited in Joshua Kucera, ‘U.S. Blocking NATO–CSTO Cooperation’, EurasiaNet, 12 February 2011, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62882.

87

‘Memorandum, Meeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dmitri Medvedev on 4–5 June 2010 in Meseberg’, 5 June 2010, http://www.russianmission.eu/sites/default/files/user/files/2010-06-05-meseberg-memorandum.pdf. See also Philip Remler, ‘Negotiation Gone Bad: Russia, Germany, and Crossed Communications’, Carnegie Europe, 21 August 2013, http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=52712.

1

Calculations by Pierre Noel, Senior Fellow for Economic and Energy Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies, shared with the authors.

2

Natal’ya Grib and Oleg Gavrish, ‘Ravnotrubie’, Kommersant Ukraina, 14 May 2010, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1368732.

3

Vera Sitnina, ‘Tak rabotat’ nel’zya, no pridetsya’, Vremya novostei, 18 May 2010, http://www.vremya.ru/2010/83/4/253821.html.

4

‘Predsedatel’ Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii V.V.Putin vstretilsya s Prezidentom Ukrainy V.F.Yanukovichem’, 5 March 2010, http://archive.government.ru/docs/9632/.

5

See ‘Rossiya rasschityvaet, chto Ukraina k 2015 godu voidet v Tamozhennyi soyuz’, RIA Novosti, 9 December 2012, http://ria.ru/economy/20121209/914040052.html; Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 68.

6

See, for example, Evraziiskii Bank Razvitiya, ‘Ukraina i Tamozhennyi soyuz’, 2012, http://www.eabr.org/general/upload/reports/Ukraina_doklad_rus.pdf.

7

Valerii Kalnysh, ‘Viktor Yanukovich reshil slozhit’sya c Rossiei’, Kommersant, 8 April 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1616528.

8

Sergei Sidorenko, ‘Tamozhennyi soyuz — eto tol’ko pervyi etap integratsii’, Kommersant, 18 April 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1623955.

9

‘Posol Ukrainy v RF nazval usloviya vstupleniya v Tamozhennyi soyuz’, Zerkalo nedeli, 13 November 2012, http://zn.ua/ECONOMICS/posol_ukrainy_v_rf_nazval_usloviya_vstupleniya_v_tamozhennyy_soyuz.html.

10

After a deputy prime minister declared that Customs Union membership contravened Ukrainian law, then-prime minister Mykola Azarov publicly contradicted him during a visit to Moscow. See ‘Azarov zaveril Rossiyu, chto ne schitaet chlenstvo Ukrainy v Tamozhennom soyuze nezakonnym’, Zerkalo nedeli, 21 November 2012, http://zn.ua/ECONOMICS/azarov_zaveril_rossiyu,_chto_ne_schitaet_chlenstvo_ukrainy_v_tamozhennom_soyuze_nezakonnym.html.

11

‘V Evrosoyuze zayavili, chto lyuboe uchastie Ukrainy v Tamozhennom soyuze nesovmestimo s dal’neishei evrointegratsiei’, Zerkalo nedeli, 25 December 2012, http://zn.ua/POLITICS/evrosoyuze_zayavili,_chto_lyuboe_uchastie_ukrainy_v_tamozhennom_soyuze_nesovmestimo_s_dalneyshey_evr.html.

12

‘Vmesto pozdravleniya: Rossiya pred’yavila Ukraine tamozhenno-gazovyi ul’timatum’, NEWSru.com, 2 January 2013, http://www.newsru.com/finance/02jan2013/rus_ukr.html.

13

Sergei Sidorenko and Andrei Kolesnikov, ‘Mezhdu soyuzom i sovetom’, Kommersant Ukraina, 30 May 2013, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2200231.

14

Roman Olearchyk, ‘Russia Accused of Triggering Trade War with Ukraine’, Financial Times, 15 August 2013, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/99068c0e-0595-11e3-8ed5-00144feab7de.html.

15

Just in case Kyiv misunderstood, Glaziev, by now a Kremlin adviser to the president, spelled it out in a statement to the press. See Sergei Smirnov, ‘Rossiya ob”yasnila uzhestochenie tamozhennogo rezhima s Ukrainoi’, Vedomosti, 18 August 2013, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2013/08/18/rossijskie-vlasti-obyasnili-za-tamozhne.

16

Mykola Ryzhenkov, Veronika Movchan and Ricardo Giucci, ‘Impact Assessment of a Possible Change in Russia’s Trade Regime Vis-a-Vis Ukraine’, Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting/German Advisory Group, November 2013, http://www.beratergruppe-ukraine.de/download/PolicyBriefings/2013/PB_04_2013_en.pdf.

17

‘Zasedanie mezhdunarodnogo diskussionnogo kluba “Valdai”’, 19 September 2013, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/19243.

18

Christiane Hoffmann et al., ‘Summit of Failure: How the EU Lost Russia over Ukraine, Part 2: Four Thousand Deaths and an Eastern Ukraine Gripped by War’, Spiegel Online, 24 November 2014, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/war-in-ukraine-a-result-of-misunderstandings-between-europe-and-russia-a-1004706-2.html.

19

Ibid.

20

‘Zayavleniya dlya pressy po okonchanii zasedaniya Rossiisko-Ukrainskoi mezhgosudarstvennoi komissii’, 17 December 2013, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/19854.

21

Yanukovych allegedly met secretly with Putin three times in October–November in order to agree the details of the financial-support package, while still sending positive signals to the EU about Vilnius. See Sonya Koshkina, Maidan: Nerasskazannaya istoriya (Kyiv: Brait Star, 2015), p. 25.

22

International Foundation for Electoral Systems, ‘IFES Public Opinion in Ukraine 2013: Key Findings’, December 2013, http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnaec646.pdf.

23

‘Ukraine Crisis: Transcript of Leaked Nuland–Pyatt Call’, BBC News, 7 February 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957.

24

Koshkina, Maidan, p. 165; ‘EU Mulls Aid Package for Crisis-Ridden Ukraine’, Associated Press, 3 February 2014, http://bigstory.ap.org/article/eu-mulls-aid-package-crisis-ridden-ukraine.

25

The agreement is available at http://zn.ua/POLITICS/obnarodovan-tekst-soglasheniya-ob-uregulirovanii-krizisa-v-ukraine-139374_.html.

26

Mick Krever, ‘Putin Phone Call Convinced Yanukovych to Change Attitude, Says Polish Foreign Minister’, Amanpour Blog, CNN, 26 February 2014, http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/02/26/vladimir-putin-viktor-yanukovych-radoslaw-sikorski-ukraine-poland-russia/.

27

‘Readout of President Obama’s Call with President Putin’, 21 February 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/02/21/readout-president-obama-s-call-president-putin.

28

Keith Darden, ‘How to Save Ukraine: Why Russia is Not the Real Problem’, Foreign Affairs, 14 April 2014, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2014-04-14/how-save-ukraine.

29

‘Secretary Kerry Speaks With Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov About the Situation in Ukraine’, 23 February 2014, https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2014/02/23/secretary-kerry-speaks-russian-foreign-minister-lavrov-about-situation-ukraine.

30

‘Remarks by EU High Representative Catherine Ashton at the End of Her Visit to Ukraine’, 25 February 2014, http://www.eeas.europa.eu/statements/docs/2014/140225_01_en.pdf.

31

Comments by McFaul during a talk at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC on 9 June 2016.

32

Lukas I. Alpert, ‘Russia’s Medvedev Calls Ukraine a Possible Threat’, Wall Street Journal, 24 February 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304834704579402922004993600; ‘Vystuplenie i otvety na voprosy SMI’, 25 February 2014, http://www.mid.ru/ru/press_service/minister_speeches/-/asset_publisher/7OvQR5KJWVmR/content/id/73790?p_p_id=101_INSTANCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR&_101_INSTANCE_7OvQR5KJWVmR_languageId=ru_RU.

33

For a full timeline of events leading up to and following the annexation of Crimea, see Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov (eds), Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (Minneapolis, MN: East View Press, 2015), pp. 209–13.

34

‘Stenohrama zasidannya Rady natsional’noyi bezpeky i oborony Ukrayiny vid 28 lyutoho 2014 roku’, 28 February 2014, http://komnbo.rada.gov.ua/komnbo/control/uk/publish/article?art_id=53495&cat_id=44731.

35

Polling data in Mezhdunarodnyi diskussionyi klub Valdai, ‘Sovremennaya rossiiskaya identichnost’: izmereniya, vyzovy, otvety’, September 2013, http://vid-1.rian.ru/ig/valdai/Russian_Identity_2013_rus.pdf.

36

See Putin’s remarks during a press conference that day: ‘Vladimir Putin otvetil na voprosy zhurnalistov o situatsii na Ukraine’, 4 March 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20366.

37

‘Readout of the President’s Call with President Putin’, 16 March 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/16/readout-president-s-call-president-putin.

38

‘Obrashchenie Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, 18 March 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603.

39

Valerii Shiryaev, ‘Vosem’ zhenshchin v dekretnom otpuske, moryak-geroi i real’naya agentura rossiiskikh spetssluzhb. Kogo vklyuchili v spisok predatelei Ukrainy?’, Novaya gazeta, 29 March 2016, http://www.novayagazeta.ru/politics/72441.html.

40

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the proposal online two days later: ‘Zayavlenie MID Rossii o Gruppe podderzhki dlya Ukrainy’, 17 March 2014, http://archive.mid.ru//brp_4.nsf/newsline/49766426492B6E9644257C9E0036B79A. Referred to hereafter as the ‘15 March document’ since that was when it was presented to the US secretary of state.

41

‘Pryamaya liniya s Vladimirom Putinym’, 17 April 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20796. As it happens, his claim about the Soviet government’s decisions in the 1920s was false.

42

‘Press Release: IMF Executive Board Approves 2-Year US$17.01 Billion Stand-By Arrangement for Ukraine, US$3.19 Billion for Immediate Disbursement’, 30 April 2014, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2014/pr14189.htm. Less than a year later, the IMF announced a slightly larger programme and also lengthened the programme timeline. ‘Press Release: IMF Executive Board Approves 4-Year US$17.5 Billion Extended Fund Facility for Ukraine, US$5 Billion for Immediate Disbursement’, 11 March 2015, https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2015/pr15107.htm.

43

Japan also instituted sanctions, but they were far less potent.

44

‘The Hague Declaration Following the G7 Meeting on 24 March’, 24 March 2014, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-14-82_en.htm.

45

Dual-use items constituted a sizeable percentage of US exports to Russia. In 2013, the Department of Commerce approved 1,832 licence applications for dual-use exports to Russia, which together amounted to US$1.5 billion of exports, or 14.4% of total US exports to Russia. See Alan M. Dunn and Jennifer M. Smith, ‘Russia and Ukraine Update: The U.S. Has Stopped Issuing of Export Licenses to Russia and the U.S., Canada, and the EU Have Expanded Sanctions, But Loan Guarantees to Ukraine Provide Opportunities for U.S. Businesses’, Stewart and Stewart, 16 April 2014, http://www.stewartlaw.com/Article/ViewArticle/997.

46

‘Remarks by President Obama and German Chancellor Merkel in Joint Press Conference’, 2 May 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/05/02/remarks-president-obama-and-german-chancellor-merkel-joint-press-confere.

47

‘Ukraine – Countering Russian Intervention and Supporting a Democratic State’, 6 May 2014, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2014/may/225674.htm.

48

Authors’ correspondence with Sergei Karaganov, September 2016.

49

‘Announcement of Expanded Treasury Sanctions within the Russian Financial Services, Energy and Defense or Related Materiel Sectors’, 12 September 2014, https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl2629.aspx.

50

‘Geneva Statement on Ukraine’, 17 April 2014, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/04/224957.htm.

51

‘Statement by the President on Ukraine’, 29 July 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/07/29/statement-president-ukraine.

52

‘Lavrov to RT: Americans Are “Running the Show” in Ukraine’, RT, 23 April 2014, https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/154364-lavrov-ukraine-standoff-sophieco/.

53

Interview with senior US official, Washington DC, June 2014.

54

See Neil Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’, Financial Times, 3 February 2015, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7cfc8ac6-ab17-11e4-91d2-00144feab7de.html.

55

Quoted in Neil Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How the West Lost Putin’, Financial Times, 2 February 2015, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e3ace220-a252-11e4-9630-00144feab7de.html.

56

Quoted in Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’.

57

Andrew Roth, ‘Putin Tells European Official That He Could “Take Kiev in Two Weeks”’, New York Times, 2 September 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/europe/ukraine-crisis.html.

58

Quoted in Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How the West Lost Putin’.

59

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Protracted Conflict in Eastern Ukraine Continues to Take Heavy Toll on Civilians’, 8 October 2014, http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15143&LangID=E.

60

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, ‘Ukraine: Situation Report No. 29 as of 27 February 2015’, 27 February 2015, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Sitrep%20%2329%20FINAL_1.pdf.

61

In the separatists’ proposal, Ukraine would be transformed from its current unitary state into a highly asymmetrical confederation: the central government would be forced to negotiate agreements on all elements of public life with DNR/LNR, while the rest of the country would remain under the current system. See ‘Popravki DNR i LNR v Konstitutsiyu Ukrainy’, 13 March 2015, http://dan-news.info/official/popravki-dnr-i-lnr-v-konstituciyu-ukrainy.html.

62

See, for example, Andrew E. Kramer, ‘Ex-Professor Upsets Ukraine Politics, and Russia Peace Accord’, New York Times, 18 March 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/world/europe/ukraine-oksana-syroyid.html; ‘Seichas my mozhem tol’ko derzhat’ oboronu — Lutsenko’, 24 kanal, 7 September 2014, http://24tv.ua/ru/seychas_mi_mozhem_tolko_derzhat_oboronu__lutsenko_n482512; Vladimir Gorbulin, ‘Est’ li zhizn’ posle Minska?’, Zerkalo nedeli, 12 February 2016, http://gazeta.zn.ua/internal/est-li-zhizn-posle-minska-razmyshleniya-o-neizbezhnosti-neobhodimyh-izmeneniy-_.html.

63

Vladimir Lukin interview in Marat Gel’man, ‘Voennyi plan Kremlya’, Novoe vremya, 30 August 2014, http://nv.ua/opinion/gelman/voennyy-plan-kremlya--9686.html. Lukin, the former ambassador to the United States quoted in Chapter 1, was Putin’s representative at the talks that produced the 21 February agreement.

64

Neil Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors, February 2015.

65

‘Vystuplenie na vstreche glav gosudarstv Tamozhennogo soyuza s Prezidentom Ukrainy i predstavitelyami Evropeiskogo soyuza’, 26 August 2014, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/46494.

66

Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.

67

As one EU delegate involved in the talks said, ‘This whole concern about the [tariff lines] was always political, it wasn’t commercial.’ Quoted in Ibid.

68

Reporting by the Financial Times. Buckley et al., ‘Battle for Ukraine: How a Diplomatic Success Unravelled’; Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.

69

For example, Russia would have allowed Ukraine to use non-EU (i.e., CIS) plant-safety standards in its trade with non-EU countries. Ukraine would retain the policymaking competences that the DCFTA cedes to Brussels. EEU members would be consulted on any major changes to Ukrainian legislation stemming from the EU approximation process, and the EU and Ukraine would commit not to adopt laws that negatively affect Ukraine’s trade with EEU members. And all 2,340 tariff lines that Putin referred to were listed. See ‘Predlozheniya rossiiskoi storony po vneseniyu popravok Soglasheniya ob assotsiatsii mezhdu ES i gosudarstvami – chlenami ES s odnoi storony i Ukrainoi s drugoi storony v tselyakh minimizatsii riskov, voznikayushchikh ot vstupleniya v silu ukazannogo soglasheniya’, http://zn.ua/static/file/russian_proposal.pdf.

70

Buckley et al., Unpublished reporting provided to the authors.

71

Peter Spiegel, ‘Putin Demands Reopening of EU Trade Pact with Ukraine’, Financial Times, 25 September 2014, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a4de51ae-44ca-11e4-9a5a-00144feabdc0.html.

72

Robin Emmott, ‘Putin Warns Ukraine against Implementing EU Deal – Letter’, Reuters, 23 September 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-trade-idUSKCN0HI1T820140923.

73

‘Godovoi raund peregovorov RF-ES-Ukraina po torgovle okonchilsya nichem’, TASS, 21 December 2015, http://tass.ru/ekonomika/2546713; European Commission, ‘No Outcome Reached at the Final Trilateral Ministerial Meeting on the EU–Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area’, 21 December 2015, http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6389_en.htm; European Commission, ‘Trilateral Talks on EU–Ukraine DCFTA: Distinguishing between Myths & Reality’, December 2015, http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2015/december/tradoc_154127.pdf; ‘Putin rasskazal o “ne ochen’ evropeiskom” shage delegatsii ES v Bryussele’, lenta.ru, 22 December 2015, https://lenta.ru/news/2015/12/22/putin/.

74

As Dragneva and Wolzcuk write, ‘Its objections regarding the incompatibility of integration rules and processes seem spurious, and instead come across as an overt attempt to delineate its sphere of influence, in turn negating the sovereign right of Ukraine to leave this sphere and pursue economic integration with the EU.’ Dragneva and Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia, p. 117.

1

Only time will tell if this loss is irreparable, but it is obvious that Russia under its current rulers, and quite likely under their successors, will be loath to give this territory back. It cannot be recovered by force of arms. It is doubtful if the population would cooperate in any reversal of status, barring a drastic change in circumstances.

2

For example, Sberbank, Russia’s omnipresent state-controlled savings bank, with offices in the West, has not operated branches in Crimea since the annexation for fear of running afoul of the sanctions. See ‘Sberbank nazval rabotu v Krymu nepozvolitel’noi dlya sebya’, Interfax, 29 May 2015, http://www.interfax.ru/business/444505.

3

In a telltale sign that not all Crimeans are thrilled with their new situation, a retiree berated Dmitry Medvedev, now prime minister of Russia, about her inadequate pension. With the cameras rolling, the most he could offer in response was, ‘There’s no money, but you hang in there!’

4

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and High Commissioner on National Minorities, ‘Report of the Human Rights Assessment Mission on Crimea (6–18 July 2015)’, 17 September 2015, http://www.osce.org/odihr/180596?download=true.

5

Amnesty International, ‘Ukraine: One Year On: Violations of the Rights to Freedom of Expression, Assembly and Association in Crimea’, 18 March 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/EUR50/1129/2015/en/.

6

Data from International Organization for Migration (May 2016) and UN High Commissioner for Refugees (June 2016), respectively. See International Organization for Migration, ‘IOM Assistance to IDPs and Conflict-Affected Population in Ukraine’, 19 May 2016, http://www.iom.org.ua/sites/default/files/general_map_eng_05-2016.png; UN High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Ukraine: UNHCR Operational Update, 14 May–10 June 2016’, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/UNHCR%20Operational%20Update%20on%20the%20Ukraine%20Situation%20-%2014MAY-10JUN16.pdf.

7

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, ‘“You Don’t Exist”: Arbitrary Detentions, Forced Disappearances, and Torture in Eastern Ukraine’, 21 July 2016, https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/21/you-dont-exist/arbitrary-detentions-enforced-disappearances-and-torture-eastern.

8

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 November 2015 to 15 February 2016’, 3 March 2016, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_13th_HRMMU_Report_3March2016.pdf.

9

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 February to 15 May 2016’, 3 June 2016, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRMMU_Report.pdf.

10

Semen Dobryi and Vladimir Dergachev, ‘Shla by lesom vasha DNR – valyu v Rossiyu’, Gazeta.ru, 16 October 2015, http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2015/10/14_a_7820639.shtml.

11

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 February to 15 May 2016’.

12

Michael Bird, Lina Vdovii and Yana Tkachenko, ‘The Donbass Paradox’, The Black Sea, http://www.theblacksea.eu/donbass/.

13

Andrei Revenko, ‘Kak my zhivem: udruchayushchie itogi 2015-go i perspektivy 2016-go’, Zerkalo nedeli, 16 July 2016, http://gazeta.zn.ua/macrolevel/kak-my-zhivem-udruchayuschie-itogi-2015-go-i-perspektivy-2016-go-_.html.

14

Zach Bikus, ‘Ukrainians’ Life Ratings Sank to New Lows in 2015’, Gallup, 4 January 2016, http://www.gallup.com/poll/187985/ukrainians-life-ratings-sank-new-lows-2015.aspx.

15

Calculations provided to the authors by Pierre Noel, Senior Fellow for Economic and Energy Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies. See also Simon Pirani, ‘Ukraine’s Imports of Russian Gas: How a Deal Might Be Reached’, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, July 2014, p. 4, https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Ukraines-imports-of-Russian-gas-how-a-deal-might-be-reached.pdf.

16

World Trade Organization, ‘Trade Policy Review Report by Ukraine’, 15 March 2016, p. 10, https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/g334_e.pdf.

17

L.M. Grigor’ev, A.V. Golyashev and E.V. Buryak, ‘Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskii krizis na Ukraine’, Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation Working Paper, September 2014, p. 26, http://ac.gov.ru/files/publication/a/3586.pdf.

18

UNITER, ‘Corruption in Ukraine: Comparative Analysis of Nationwide Surveys of 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015’, April 2016; Julie Ray, ‘Ukrainians Disillusioned With Leadership’, Gallup, 23 December 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/187931/ukrainians-disillusioned-leadership.aspx.

19

Survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, http://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=231&page=1&y=2014&m=2.

20

Tom Parfitt, ‘Ukraine Crisis: The Neo-Nazi Brigade Fighting Pro-Russian Separatists’, Telegraph, 11 August 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11025137/Ukraine-crisis-the-neo-Nazi-brigade-fighting-pro-Russian-separatists.html.

21

Calculations by Keith Darden, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University, shared with the authors.

22

On the rubbish bins, see Roland Oliphant, ‘Up to a Dozen Ukraine Officials Dumped in Wheelie Bins’, Telegraph, 7 October 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/11145381/Up-to-a-dozen-Ukraine-officials-dumped-in-wheelie-bins.html.

23

Keith Gessen, ‘Why Not Kill Them All?’, London Review of Books, vol. 36, no. 17, 11 September 2014.

24

‘Ukraine’s Poroshenko: “New Russia” Is like “Mordor”’, BBC News, 24 August 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34037743.

25

GDP growth was negative for at least six consecutive quarters from Q3 2014 to Q4 2015. (2016 quarter-on-quarter data is unavailable at the time of writing.) During the 1998 crisis, there were three negative quarters, and four in the global financial crisis of 2008–09.

26

See World Bank, ‘Global Economic Prospects: Divergences and Risks’, June 2016, p. 4, http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/842861463605615468/Global-Economic-Prospects-June-2016-Divergences-and-risks.pdf.

27

Konstantin Kholodilin and Aleksei Netšunajev, ‘Crimea and Punishment: The Impact of Sanctions on Russian and European Economies’, Discussion Papers, German Institute for Economic Research, 2016, https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.530645.de/dp1569.pdf. See also Christian Dreger et al., ‘The Ruble between the Hammer and the Anvil: Oil Prices and Economic Sanctions’, Discussion Papers, German Institute for Economic Research, 2015, https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.507887.de/dp1488.pdf.

28

See World Bank, ‘The Dawn of a New Economic Era?’, Russia Economic Report, April 2015, pp. 33–42, https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/eca/russia/rer33-eng.pdf.

29

Polling conducted by the Levada Center, http://www.levada.ru/eng/indexes-0.

30

See Mikhail Dmitriev, ‘Between the Crimea and the Crisis: Attitude Change of Russians and Its Political Implications’, Presentation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 28 April 2015, pp. 16–26, https://csis-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/legacy_files/files/attachments/150428_Dmitriev.pdf.

31

See, for example, Adrian Chen, ‘The Agency’, New York Times Magazine, 2 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html.

32

Once the Russian military became more directly involved in the fighting in the Donbas, these nationalist volunteers were pushed out of the limelight. Those who resisted Moscow’s effort to impose control ended up in a basement prison or, in some cases, dead; most returned to Russia. Some became outspoken critics of what they saw as feckless government policy.

33

Federal Ministry of Defence, ‘White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr’, 13 July 2016, p. 32, link.

34

See Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, ‘Consequences of a New Cold War’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 57, no. 2, April–May 2015, pp. 37–46.

35

It would take some time to compensate for the post-1991 drawdown of Russian forces in its western quadrant. Compared with Russia’s other frontiers, the western remains less heavily guarded.

36

On support for eurosceptical parties, see Suzanne Daley and Maïa de la Baume, ‘French Far Right Gets Helping Hand With Russian Loan’, New York Times, 1 December 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/world/europe/french-far-right-gets-helping-hand-with-russian-loan-.html.

37

‘Remarks Previewing the FY 2017 Defense Budget’, 2 February 2016, http://www.defense.gov/News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/648466/remarks-previewing-the-fy-2017-defense-budget.

38

Matthieu Crozet and Julian Hinz, ‘Collateral Damage: The Impact of the Russia Sanctions on Sanctioning Countries’ Exports’, CEPII Working Paper, Centre d’Etudes Prospectives et d’Informations Internationales, June 2016, http://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/wp/2016/wp2016-16.pdf.

39

Ronald D. Asmus, A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia, and the Future of the West (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 71.

40

See Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

41

The five Central Asian countries have more virulent strains of the same pathologies.

42

Joel Hellman, ‘Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions’, World Politics, vol. 50, no. 2, January 1998, pp. 203–34.

43

Ibid., p. 233.

44

The EU, the World Bank and the IMF froze financial aid to Moldova in 2015 following revelations about a bank-fraud scheme in which private financiers and public officials (including the prime minister) embezzled more than US$1 billion, or 12% of Moldova’s GDP. Transfers already authorised were not affected. The EU’s ambassador to Chisinau was quoted in 2015 as saying he was baffled by ‘how it is possible to steal so much money from a small country’ (quoted in Andrew Higgins, ‘Moldova, Hunting for Missing Millions, Finds Only Ash’, New York Times, 4 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/05/world/europe/moldova-bank-theft.html). Nevertheless, as of September 2016 the EU had reopened the taps. See Cristi Vlas, ‘EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn Visits Moldova, Brings a €15 Million Assistance Program for Public Administration Reform’, moldova.org, 26 September 2016, http://www.moldova.org/en/eu-commissioner-johannes-hahn-visits-moldova-brings-e15-million-assistance-program-public-administration/.

45

International Foundation for Electoral Systems, ‘Ukraine 2013 Public Opinion Poll Shows Dissatisfaction with Socio-Political Conditions’, 5 December 2013, http://www.ifes.org/news/ukraine-2013-public-opinion-poll-shows-dissastisfaction-socio-political-conditions.

46

See polling in Steven Kull and Clay Ramsay, ‘The Ukrainian People on the Current Crisis’, Public Consultation Program at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland Report, March 2015, http://www.cissm.umd.edu/publications/ukrainian-people-current-crisis.

47

For evidence from 2014, see Gerard Toal and John O’Loughlin, ‘How People in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria Feel about Annexation by Russia’, Washington Post Monkey Cage Blog, 20 March 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/03/20/how-people-in-south-ossetia-abkhazia-and-transnistria-feel-about-annexation-by-russia/.

48

International Republican Institute, ‘Public Opinion Survey Residents of Moldova, September 29–October 21, 2015’, http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/2015-11-09_survey_of_moldovan_public_opinion_september_29-october_21_2015.pdf.

49

According to a disputed plebiscite conducted in February 2014, more than 98% of the Gagauz supported joining the Customs Union. See ‘TsIK Gagauzii obnarodoval okonchatel’nye itogi referenduma o budushchei sud’be avtonomii’, TASS, 5 February 2014, http://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/940951.

50

In a 2016 poll, 79% of Georgians favoured NATO membership and 85% membership of the EU. See International Republican Institute, ‘Public Opinion Survey Residents of Georgia, March–April 2016’, http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/georgia_2016.pdf.

51

Toal and O’Loughlin, ‘How People in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Transnistria Feel about Annexation by Russia’.

52

Human Rights Watch, ‘Crossing the Line: Georgia’s Violent Dispersal of Protestors and Raid on Imedi Television’, 19 December 2007, https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/12/19/crossing-line/georgias-violent-dispersal-protestors-and-raid-imedi-television.

53

Nelli Babayan, ‘The In-Betweeners: The Eastern Partnership Countries and the Russia–West Conflict’, 2015–16 Paper Series, Transatlantic Academy, April 2016, p. 1, http://www.gmfus.org/file/8150/download.

54

EU officials cited in Ibid., p. 13.

55

As one European diplomat put it, ‘[Poroshenko] knows perfectly well that we cannot allow Ukraine to fail, that we have invested a lot in this country, and we need to have Ukraine as a success story. And he is abusing that knowledge. It is infuriating.’ Quoted in Joshua Yaffa, ‘Reforming Ukraine after the Revolution’, New Yorker, 5 September 2016, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/09/05/reforming-ukraine-after-maidan.

56

The Russian representative, Sergei Karaganov of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, found it necessary to insert a ‘letter of disagreement’ into the document, in which he said he took issue with 24 of the points raised by Western members. The report, ‘Back to Diplomacy’, can be found at http://www.osce.org/networks/205846?download=true.

57

This pattern, to be sure, applies more strictly to economic integration than to collective-security groupings.

58

The ever-increasing economic role of China in post-Soviet Eurasia implies that the Russia–West binary of external patrons is already a thing of the past. We are grateful to Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, for this point.

59

Hiski Haukkala, ‘A Perfect Storm; Or What Went Wrong and What Went Right for the EU in Ukraine’, Europe–Asia Studies, vol. 68, no. 4, June 2016, pp. 653–64.

60

Charles A. Kupchan, The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century (New York: Random House, 2007), p. 14.

61

This section draws on Samuel Charap and Jeremy Shapiro, ‘US–Russian Relations: The Middle Cannot Hold’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 72, no. 3, April 2016, pp. 150–5.

62

We should recall that the US policy of non-recognition of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states did not prevent the agreement from going forward.