The escalating rivalry between the EU and Russia in their shared neighborhood creates important economic, political, and legal challenges for the lands in between. Belarus and Ukraine have received proposals of integration from both the EU and Russia. However, the extents to which they accepted these offers differ and result from a multitude of factors as well as their interplay affecting the policy choices of their governments. International integration is a foreign policy question, but it has a strong domestic dimension too. Explaining various integration stances demands considering a country's foreign and internal affairs. Alla Leukavets applies here Putnam's two-level game-theoretical approach in combination with findings from comparative neighborhood Europeanization and democracy promotion studies, as well as Levitsky/Way's linkages-and-leverage-model. She develops various actor-centered and structural explanatory variables and applies them in the subsequent empirical analysis. Her research results benefit from triangulation through primary documents analysis and semi-structured interviews with elites and experts in Minsk, Moscow, Brussels, and Washington, DC. The book analyses how the simultaneity of European and Eurasian integration challenged the two countries to make a major strategic integration choice. The study sheds light on the reasons for and genesis of the Ukraine crisis, and on how external actors, such as the EU, can succeed in facilitating domestic reforms in Eastern Partnership countries.

This book addresses the complex origins of the Ukrainian crisis. It places the crisis in a longer-term perspective and shows how the domestic political regime interpreted, balanced and eventually chose between the competing integration offers of Russia and the EU. It also explores the key implications for Ukraine's relations with the EU and Russia.

Three former western Soviet republics - Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova - now find themselves torn between the European Union and the increasingly assertive Russia. This volume examines the foreign and domestic policies of these states with an eye to the lasting legacy of Russian domination and the growing attraction of Europe.

This monograph contains two individual reports: Belarus and Russia: Comradeship-in-Arms in Preempting Democracy by Dr. Vitali Silitski and Ukraine: Domestic Changes and Foreign Policy Reconfiguration by Dr. Arkady Moshes. Belarus remains the last true dictatorship in Europe, and as such, its internal and external security agenda is an abiding matter of concern to the European and Western communities. But its trajectory is of equal concern to Moscow, which has been the prime external supporter and subsidizer of the Belarussian government under President Alyaksandr' Lukashenka. But despite this support, tensions between Moscow and Minsk are growing. The brief energy cutoffs imposed by Moscow at the start of the year and Belarus' retaliation shows that not all is well in that relationship. Not surprisingly, Lukashenka has now turned back to the West for foreign support, but it will not be forthcoming without significant domestic reform which is quite unlikely. Ukraine presents a different series of puzzles and challenges to Western leaders and audiences. It too has suffered from Russian energy coercion, but its political system is utterly different from Belarus and in a state of profound turmoil. Therefore, precise analysis of what has occurred and what is currently happening in Ukraine is essential to a correct understanding of trends there that can then inform sound policymaking.

This book focuses on the difficulties facing Russia, Ukraine and Belarus with regard to their integration into both the CIS and the encroaching EU. It analyzes the links between the integration mechanisms of the CIS and EU and the various state policies towards, and the elite interests in, the territory of the former Soviet Union.