EuroMaidan Revolution
OP-ED
Anne Applebaum: Europe is seeing an East-West clash of values
Pro-Russian fighters of Vostok (East) battalion rip apart an Ukrainian flag outside a regional state building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on May 29, 2014. Armed militiamen of the Pro-Russian Vostok batallion surrounded the regional state building in Donetsk before entering, demanding that the activists of the so-called People's Republic of Donetsk leave the premises and detaining several of them. Pro-Russian rebels downed a Ukrainian helicopter on May 29, killing 12 soldiers including a general and undermining president-elect Petro Poroshenko's fervent vow to crush the bloody seven-week insurgency roiling the industrial east. AFP PHOTO/ VIKTOR DRACHEV
By any measure, it was a landmark, landslide victory — for Europe. On May 25, Petro Poroshenko declared victory in the first round of the Ukrainian presidential election. He had won more than 55 percent of the vote — and Ukrainians knew exactly what they were getting. Poroshenko campaigned on integrating his country into European institutions. After his victory, he repeated that goal. Ukraine is on the brink of financial catastrophe and is fighting a de facto invasion: Well-armed Chechen soldiers have now arrived to assist the Russian-made insurgency in the east. Yet in his victory speech, Poroshenko declared he wanted not only to “put an end to war, to put an end to chaos,” but also to “bring in European values” to his country.
