Russia Really Does Not Want Ukraine to Join the European Union

When Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a shout-out to Ukrainian chocolate, it was clear the battle had been joined.

Russia wants Ukraine firmly in its camp, but time is running out. To gain the predominant say over its neighbor’s destiny, Moscow has been furiously trying to derail a pending trade agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government has been deploying insults, dire warnings and customs delays in its efforts to sway the decision.

And, for a while, it refused to import chocolates from Ukraine’s premier confectionery company after Russia’s usually pliant health inspectors suddenly discovered heretofore undetected sanitary shortcomings in the candy boxes.

Russia’s tactics in a struggle that pits East vs. West are “totally stupid and counterproductive,” said Viktor Pinchuk, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest men and the host of an international conference here that ended Saturday, after Clinton and a parade of American and European leaders urged Ukraine to finalize the deal with the E.U.

Putin wants Ukraine to join the customs union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan instead, but his strategy has been all vinegar and no honey. The Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, called Russia’s demands an attempt at “humiliation.”

And yet, as much as Putin seems to be pushing Ukraine into Europe’s embrace, ambivalence here runs deep. Azarov and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych have said they intend to sign with the E.U. in November, but they have a way of hedging every statement.

It’s a momentous choice. Ukraine has the chance to opt for a road that in theory would extend European values of transparency and the rule of law far to the east. Or it can join Russia in a financial and cultural zone that is increasingly defining itself as separate from the West and not answerable to Western norms. As a nation of 46 million, Ukraine would be a significant addition to Putin’s Eurasian Union.

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