Window on Eurasia:
Moscow’s Bullying of Ukraine Undermines Putin’s Neo-Imperial Projects — and Harms Russia as Well
Staunton, November 27 – By bullying Kyiv to put off signing an EU association agreement, Russian President Vladimir Putin may have won a battle but he has lost the war, commentators say, because his actions now will make it far less likely that other former Soviet republics will be attracted to one or another of his neo-imperial projects.
At the same time, however, as Putin’s approach to Kyiv shows, some of these countries or at least their political elites can be bullied effectively, and that means that the Kremlin is likely to engage in more such efforts in the future even though that will further alienate these nations from Russia and undermine their governments in the eyes of their own populations.