Leonid Bershidsky: Ukraine is in danger of becoming a failed state
An AutoMaidan activist holds a poster with a face of both Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and President Petro Poroshenko as he stands next to the gate of the President Poroshenko's residence on Oct. 31.
The most effective thing Russian President Vladimir Putin did to destabilize Ukraine was the one thing the West was demanding: He leaned on pro-Russian separatists in the country's east to cease fire. Left without the much-used cover of a war, the internal divisions and dysfunctional core of the Ukrainian political elite didn't take long to reveal itself. Rather than the democratic hope it might have become after last year's "Revolution of Dignity," Ukraine now looks like just another incompetent and corrupt post-Soviet regime. It's no wonder cracks are appearing in Kyiv's all-important relationship with the West.
