U.S.-Ukraine Relationship (2014–2019): Dilemmas of the Alliance

Abstract

Ukraine's crisis has continued escalating since former president Viktor Yanukovych announced his decision to cancel the planned signing of an association agreement with the European Union in November 2013. Over the subsequent 15 months, what began as a debate over a relatively arcane trade deal descended into revolution, a Russian invasion, and a civil war in eastern Ukraine. Despite wholesale political change in Ukraine, repeated diplomatic initiatives, and billions of dollars in foreign assistance, the crisis shows no signs of ending. The effects of the crisis have also rippled across Europe, and across the Atlantic. Relations between the United States and its European allies on the one hand and Russia on the other have plummeted to levels not seen since the Cold War. Russia too has suffered badly from the crisis. Sanctions, coupled with a precipitous decline in oil prices over the past several months, and poor economic policy have combined to plunge the Russian economy into stagflation, even as Russia's military intervention in Ukraine has left Moscow isolated internationally. In all likelihood, Moscow miscalculated the galvanizing effect its actions would have on the West, along with the ability of the United States and European Union to maintain a unified front on sanctions even in the face of continued economic weakness in Europe. Professional economists and the business community have urged President Vladimir Putin to reach a negotiated end to the crisis, but Putin has systematically excluded these voices from decisionmaking, relying on an ever-shrinking circle of security service veterans. While Putin has enjoyed a huge boost in his approval ratings since the initial Russian push into Crimea in February 2014, the economic crisis and a growing unwillingness to hear bad news have made Kremlin policymaking increasingly erratic, injecting a high degree of uncertainty into Russia's future development. Russia Russia is facing its own economic and political crisis, which is intimately linked to the conflict in Ukraine, but at the same time also reflects the fundamental weaknesses of Russia's own economy, including the failure of Putin's Kremlin to reduce dependence on natural resource exports during his tenure in power. Russia's economic problems began even before the United States and European Union imposed sanctions in response to the February 2014 annexation of Crimea. For now, the most likely course for Russia is continued economic decline, with the main uncertainty centered on the effects that the economic crisis will have on both Russian actions in Ukraine and on domestic stability.