This week, Ukrainians learned that their country really does lie on a fault line between two civilizations. This does not mean they are enduring a “clash of civilizations” or a religious conflict of the sort once famously predicted by Samuel Huntington: Ukraine is more correctly described as a country lying between the civilization of institutions and of the rule of law, as epitomized by the European Union; and the civilization of arbitrary rule, as embodied by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
Anne Applebaum: Succumbing to Russia’s big stick
AFP
