Ukraine – a buffer or a partner?

Veronika Pulišová, Slovakian analyst, asks the question: If the Cold War is over, why is there still a country “between Europe and Russia”?

Ukraine is still being referred to as a country “between Europe and Russia” not only in ordinary public discourse and media but by top officials and diplomats, those in the US, EU and Russia, first and foremost, but also in Ukraine itself. Why there is such an “in-betweenness”, two decades after the end of the Cold War?

In her opening remarks to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearings on Ukraine on February 1st, 2012, labelled “Ukraine at a Crossroads: What’s at Stake for the US and Europe?”, the US Senator for New Hampshire Jeanne Shaheen introduced Ukraine as one of the largest and most strategically located countries on the European continent, literally and figuratively lying “at the crossroads between Europe and Russia”. In a similar vein, she was followed by a testimony by, Steven Pifer from the Brookings Institution, in Washington DC, criticising President Viktor Yanukovych’s domestic policies for seriously undermining Ukraine’s ability to balance its relationship “between the West and Russia”.

To read the full article click here: https://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/317

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Also online: "Serbia stays EU-Focused". A look at the recent elections in Serbia and what the results might mean for ordinary Serbs: https://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/315

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