Ukraine

I have my criticisms of the Obama administration, but it does seem to have the right idea about the European Union’s diplomatic efficacy. His top diplomat for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, has been taking a lot of stick after she was caught on tape (or hacked, as we Brits would call it)  discussing the Ukraine problem with the US ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt. She was rude about the EU, but the condemnation of her language seems to have overlooked her central point. The EU has been trying to muscle in on talks about Ukraine’s pro-democracy moves. It could have helped by offering membership to Ukraine, but it prevaricated

Europe, eh? Good for nothing, innit? That’s the prevailing narrative you hear these days. But, as so often, this is a matter of perspective. The chart above, plundered courtesy of Anne Applebaum’s twitter feed, shows the respective growths of GDP per capita in Poland and the Ukraine since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact. One of these countries, as you can see, has done rather better than the other. It’s the country that has made a better fist of democracy. And it’s the country that is a member of the European Union. Which is one reason why Britain should still be in favour

Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ukraine’s foreign minister, clearly has his work cut out for him. The conviction of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko by a Pechersk court to a seven year prison sentence has been seen, almost universally, as a piece of bully-boy politics, which will set back Ukraine’s links with the EU. NATO has made clear it is “disappointed” by the sentence handed down while several European foreign ministers, including Foreign Secretary William Hague, have expressed their concern. I fielded these questions to Ukraine’s foreign minister via email. Daniel Korski: The conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko is clearly a foreign policy mess for Ukraine, giving that it will most likely set back

For a while it looked like the West had the upper hand. Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko, Europe’s last dictator, seemed to be moving away from Russia and closer to the West. A succession of European ministers went to see him and returned to develop packages of support and assistance with his country. In that new “Great Game” played out on Europe’s periphery it looked like Vladimir Putin’s winning streak was finally coming to en end, after partial success in Georgia and outright victory in Ukraine. Or so European leaders hoped. But any hope of changing Belarus’ position has now been dashed with the violent crackdown in Minsk against pro-democracy activists following

It is easy to paint Ukraine’s new leader, Viktor Yanukovych, as a pantomime monster, Russian stooge and businessman’s puppet. Last month I suggested his electoral victory over namesake Victor Yushchenko may not be as bad as people think. Now Andrew Wilson, Britain’s foremost Ukraine expert, argues the same. In a briefing paper, he notes that elections in Ukraine open up new opportunities for the EU: ‘Paradoxically, Yanukovych’s quest for good relations with Russia could also make it easier for EU member states to reach a consensus about how to deal with Ukraine. Too often in the past, the EU has been unable to develop a coherent policy on Ukraine because