The Shoals of UkraineJanuary/February 2020 89
other policy alternative would have been to strengthen the Partnership
for Peace, of which Ukraine was a member, instead of marginalizing
the partnership and promoting nato’s expansion to a small number of
countries.) Before long, the consequences of going without such sup-
ports would become clear.
BAD OMENS
Washington’s magical thinking was again on full display when a former
kgb agent named Vladimir Putin suddenly became acting president of
Russia on December 31, 1999. In the wake of what appeared to be a
secret deal (trading power for protection in retirement), Yeltsin made
a surprise television announcement on that New Year’s Eve that he was
resigning, effective immediately, and that Putin was in charge. The
strategic environment became, at a stroke, much less permissive of
Ukraine’s ongoing efforts to assert its independence. In contrast to
Yeltsin, Putin made a concerted effort to reassert Russian influence in
the post-Soviet space, first through
political and economic means and
then by using military force. Western
policymakers, however, clung to the
belief that Putin had been installed to
continue the domestic and interna-
tional course established by Yeltsin.
The flaw in this thinking was not immediately apparent, as Putin at
first seemed willing to cooperate with the West, most notably after the
9/11 attacks. Putin saw this cooperation not as a reflection of shared
interests, however, but as a concession that should earn Moscow con-
cessions from the West in return. Yet Washington refused to do what
the Kremlin expected in exchange for its backing of the U.S. invasion
of Afghanistan, namely, allow it a free hand in the post-Soviet space.
Instead, the United States maintained its support for the sovereignty
of the post-Soviet republics and refused to acknowledge what Putin
considered to be Russia’s ongoing right to dominate its former empire.
Problems worsened when further expansion by both nato and the eu
into eastern Europe put an effective end to the short-lived honeymoon
between Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush. In March 2004,
nato accepted into its ranks the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania—which were once part of the Soviet Union, and four
other states. The accession of the Baltics signaled that nato enlarge-
Few people in Kyiv could
imagine Russians and
Ukrainians shooting at
each other.