Posted on 06/28/2014 8:56:07 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
Dealing a defiant blow to the Kremlin, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a long-delayed trade pact with Europe on Friday that Moscow had bitterly opposed. He then declared he would like his country to one day become a full member of the European Union.
In so doing, Ukraine’s new leader, a billionaire confectionary magnate, has in effect raised a risky bet on the West that has cost his country hundreds of lives and the loss of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and has set off a low-level civil war in its eastern border region.
By signing the trade pact . . . Mr. Poroshenko revived a deal whose rejection last November by his predecessor, Viktor F. Yanukovych, set off months of pro-European protests in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and pushed the West into its biggest test of wills with Russia since the end of the Cold War.
The unrest toppled Mr. Yanukovych and drove pro-Russian activists in Crimea and the eastern region of Donetsk to demand annexation by Russia.
“This is a really historic date for Ukraine,” Mr. Poroshenko, who won Ukraine’s presidential elections in May to fill a post left vacant when Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February, said at a news conference here.
In a dig at Mr. Yanukovych, he said he had signed the agreement with the same pen that his toppled predecessor would have used to sign the same pact, before he changed his mind under pressure from Moscow and set up his own downfall.
The completion of the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine marked a severe setback for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his oft-repeated goal of reasserting Russian influence in the “near abroad,” Moscow’s term for the territories of the former Soviet Union.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Good move!
Although not in the headline, the article also mentions Georgia and Moldova signing.
Why can’t these three countries understand that Putin only means the best for them? :)
History will decide that. Two regions of Ukraine declared their independence rather than become part of the EU. Russia has yet to play their card in response.
Russia's card is to invade and occupy, again. It's getting worn out.
A minority of thugs in two oblasts declared their independence.
Thanks 1rudeboy. Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova move toward Europe, while some pieces of Ukraine invaded and occupied by Russian thugs move into the dictatorship.
True. The only problem is Ukraine has nothing but illegal immigrants to trade to EU.
~Statistically, countries that have broken away from Russia and joined the EU have done better than those that have not. So it looks decided.~
Do you realize a difference between East Germany, Estonia on one side and Ukraine, Georgia on the other side?
Georgia is a primary example of a nation failed by western lean in this part of the world. It’s economy was devastated by anti-Russian policies and all the growth is fake, all by the direct influx of US taxpayers’ money.
It is like a Cuba in reverse and Ukraine is set to duplicate it and actually to perform even worse because US is not in position to compensate ruined Russian economic ties for a country the size of France.
Georgia is a member of the EU? Gosh, I learn something new from you Russians every day.
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