RFERL
The Kremlin’s attempts to destroy Ukraine’s European aspirations is simply one of Russia’s many challenges to the post-World War II international liberal order, notes analyst Natalie A. Jaresko. The actions of the Kremlin have but one purpose: to destroy the transatlantic partnership and the principles of the post-World War II order and peace, she writes in a paper for the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund:
Ukraine is simply one of the battlegrounds, but it is a key because it is in Europe. Unity of the transatlantic partnership and of the democratic nations is critical. Unity of support for the Ukrainian transition process is a serious part of this battle, because Ukraine’s successful democratic, rule-of-law based transformation is key to ensuring a Europe whole, free and at peace.
For the future of European security and the liberal international order, it is essential we ensure that when Kremlin leaders reflect a decade from now on Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, they see it as a strategic blunder that set Ukraine irrevocably on a path towards Western integration and liberal democracy, Michael Carpenter writes for Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government (HT:FPI).
The governor of the National Bank of Ukraine may be diminutive, but she speaks powerful, the Atlantic Council’s Melinda Haring writes.
“For the previous two decades we were not brave enough,” Valeria Gontareva, 52, said in a March 8 interview. “The real transition from post-USSR to [a] modern competitive economy did not happen when Ukraine gained its independence.” Instead, Ukraine continued to build on the old Soviet edifice. “The longer you wait, the harder it is to construct the proper basics,” she tells Haring, a former Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.
