Steven Pifer: Ukraine’s perilous balancing act
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.
Since Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, the primary foreign policy challenge confronting policy makers in Kiev has been to strike the proper balance between Ukraine’s relations with the West and its relations with Russia. Ukrainian presidents over the past 20 years have structured this balance with the purpose of fixing Ukraine’s identity on the European map, ensuring that Ukraine does not end up as a borderland between an enlarging Europe and a recalcitrant Russia, and gaining greater freedom of maneuver vis-à-vis Moscow. Such a balance has generally served Ukraine well, but maintaining it has always been tricky.
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