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Standoff in Ukraine

Standoff in Ukraine

(Bloomberg) -- The allure of the West has helped shape Russian history since Peter the Great three centuries ago. Now it’s shattering even older bonds with Russia’s neighbor, Ukraine. In 2013, a rebellion in Kyiv sparked by pro-European protesters seeking a decisive break from the nation’s Soviet past set in motion a chain of events that created the tensest standoff between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014, proclaiming a duty to defend the ethnic Russians who dominate the population there and sending shockwaves through the post-World War II order. Soon after, he fomented a military conflict in eastern Ukraine that dragged on for more than five years.

The Situation

The election in 2019 of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his pledge to end the war reinvigorated diplomatic efforts to implement a lapsed 2015 peace accord. The years of fighting in rebel-held eastern Ukraine have claimed in excess of 13,000 lives. Sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and the European Union over the Crimea seizure helped bring Putin to the negotiating table. But the sticking point remained the same: Russia wants any deal to include a halt to Ukraine’s aspirations to join the EU and NATO. Were Zelenskiy to agree, he’d risk another revolution, like the 2013 uprising that prompted Kremlin-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych to flee, because most Ukrainians favor a tilt to the West. There was some progress in 2019: Prisoners were exchanged, troops pulled back from the contested border and Russia returned two Ukrainian vessels it seized during naval standoff near Crimea. Violence has also fallen from peak levels in 2014, when a Malaysian Air jet was shot down over the conflict zone, killing 298 passengers and crew. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, America is supplying military aid to Ukraine, though its provision was at the center of the scandal that prompted efforts to remove Trump from office. The U.S. crisis was a distraction for Zelenskiy as he pushed a package of market-friendly measures to pep up the economy and pursued more than $5 billion of aid from the International Monetary Fund.

Standoff in Ukraine

The Background

Ukraine and Russia trace their roots to the ninth century, when a collection of tribes founded Kievan Rus around modern-day Kyiv. Ukraine struggled to carve out an identity, falling under Moscow’s sway through most of the Russian and Soviet empires. More recently, the two countries have been bound together by energy, albeit with recurring disagreements over prices and terms. Russia is aiming to bypass the Ukrainian pipelines that provide transit for natural gas en route to European markets with alternative routes set to open in 2020. Ukraine, for its part, has found alternatives to fuel supplies from its neighbor. While linguistic and ethnic differences persist between the mainly Russian-speaking regions in the east and the Ukrainian-speaking provinces of the west near the border with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, the conflict with Russia has brought many Ukrainians together and helped forge a sense of national unity. There’s still sympathy for the Kremlin in Russian-speaking regions, but a sizeable majority in the country of 42 million backs Western integration.

The Argument

What began as a dispute over whether Ukraine would face east or west has raised broader questions about its future as a unified state. Western-oriented Ukrainians hope that aligning the country’s future with the EU will strengthen institutions, bolster democracy and stem a slide back toward the days of Soviet rule. The enthusiastic support in Russia for Putin’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine underscored the growing gulf between the worldviews of Moscow, Kyiv, the U.S. and Europe. Russia’s oil and gas once tied all sides together. While Putin has revoked discounts that amounted to a crucial subsidy for Ukraine, his country still provides more than one-third of the EU’s gas imports. For now, Ukraine maintains Western political, financial and military support. But cracks are starting to appear. Trump has made no secret of his desire for warmer relations with Russia, despite its meddling in the 2016 election. Closer to home, French President Emmanuel Macron wants to bring Putin in from the cold, raising questions about the depth of Western commitment to Ukraine.

The Reference Shelf

To contact the editor responsible for this QuickTake: Leah Harrison at lharrison@bloomberg.net, Andy Reinhardt

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