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Whatever the precise territorial consequences of the Ukraine war, the political outcome is already clear. With Ukraine’s westward course now irreversible, Russia has lost its bet on creating a vassal state and buffer zone in Eastern Europe.
This was one of the key messages from an international symposium of diplomats and academics gathered at Cambridge University on Thursday, April 4, under the auspices of the Center for Geopolitics. The focus was on the 2013 Maidan revolution that overthrew Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president. President Viktor Yanukovych put the country on track for Europe, but also focused on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022.
“Putin lost Ukraine. It became crystal clear. He violated their sovereignty and they resisted him,” said the president, who served as the European Union’s first foreign policy chief from 2009 to 2014. , said Baroness Catherine Ashton, who met frequently with Yanukovych and President Putin during the tumultuous months of the uprising. “He’s been losing them for years, and now he’s completely lost them.”
The Maidan protests began on the night of November 21, 2013, when President Yanukovych did not sign an association agreement with the European Union that had been under negotiation for seven years, opting instead for a free trade agreement with Moscow.
“I remember that night very well,” said Argita Dause, Latvia’s ambassador to Ukraine at the time, who was hosting the reception that day. “An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine joined us late, but he was in a very bad mood.”
“In 2013, Ukrainian society lived with a certain hope that closer ties with the EU would bring Ukraine more order and faster economic development,” Dauze said. “It seems that the concept of Europe began to become an answer to many of the problems facing Ukrainian parliamentarians and became synonymous with the good life for the common people.”
As the protests against Yanukovych grew, “The atmosphere was great. There were families, young people, NGO leaders, journalists, people from all walks of life in Kyiv,” said Ashton, who visited the crowd. look back.
“And it was very, very cold, so you could tell that people were committed… There was a clear sense that this was a people’s movement that would never go away.”
The spontaneous nature and length of the uprising belied Russian claims that it was orchestrated by Western officials.
But Ukraine is not alone in its hopes of benefiting from stronger ties with the EU. Ashton believes that the experience of absorbing Ukraine is also bringing about changes in the European Union. “This has made the EU stronger and more coherent in terms of foreign policy,” she told Al Jazeera.
Foreign and defense policy remains a national competency and action at EU level requires unanimity, but Mr Ashton said Europe’s willingness to cooperate was “absolutely extraordinary” and had increased since his tenure. .
For example, during the Maidan uprising, many EU member states still had respect for Russia. “Many thought the Polish government’s reaction was too weak,” said Lukasz Kulesa, deputy director of research at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. “[Then-Foreign Minister Radoslav] Sikorsky told Ukrainians to agree to a compromise with Yanukovych. ”
Even after President Putin annexed Crimea in March of the following year, European officials advised Ukraine not to use weapons against Russians, and Germany built Nord Stream gas pipes under the Baltic Sea that bypassed Ukraine. An agreement was reached with Russia to build the line.
Poland is now one of Ukraine’s most visible allies, Germany has abandoned Nord Stream, the EU has imposed more than a dozen sanctions against Russia, and this year marks the start of a predictable multi-year war against Ukraine. Introducing military and financial aid.
“The EU has never understood its own strength,” Ashton said. “We are a huge economic power, but we have yet to realize that we have the ability to use our tremendous economic power to get things done.” EU leaders are planning a security strategy for the next 50 years. It’s time to start formulating, she said.
In December, the EU invited Ukraine and Moldova to start the accession process, which was also seen as a form of security.
Vygaudas Ussakas, who served as EU ambassador to Moscow from 2013 to 2017, said in July that “both European countries and NATO will promote Ukraine’s accession negotiations to the EU, and that the Washington summit will bring Ukraine to join NATO.” He called for an “unprecedented political decision.” Both processes typically take several years, but joining would always strengthen Ukraine’s involvement in negotiations with Russia to end the war, Ussakas said.
For the same reason, he called for the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine and “immediate and urgent large-scale military and financial assistance to Ukraine so that it can regain momentum and talk to its adversaries from a position of strength.” .
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg this week reportedly proposed a NATO aid package that would send $100 billion in military aid to Ukraine over five years.
This coordinated policy between the EU and Europe’s NATO allies contrasts with U.S. lawmakers who are beholden to presidential candidate Donald Trump, who this year froze aid to Ukraine and placed more responsibility on European shoulders. It is true.
“This is the biggest success of Russia’s political war,” Mark Voyager, a lecturer in international relations at the American University of Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. “I definitely believe that Mr. Trump is beneficial to the Kremlin in some way, whether it’s his visit in the late Soviet era, his Miss Universe activities in Moscow, or his business with Trump Tower. I believe the Russians have something pretty significant about him, whether it’s business or financial or personal ties.”
But the U.S. investigation has so far found no evidence that Russia holds any dangerous information that would make former President Trump vulnerable to political pressure from Russia.
Whatever Trump’s reasons for cutting off aid to Ukraine, Dauze argues that the country was in the midst of the Second World War, when Stalin’s forces swept through Eastern Europe and the brief independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Latvia during the interwar period ended. It reminded us of the consequences of not standing up to Russia during and after the war. Lithuania.
“Politicians in the Baltic states decided not to fight and accept the Soviet promise not to touch their sovereignty,” she said. “Under conditions of world war, we could not expect help from other countries and we lost our freedom.”
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