In the conditions of a strongly anti-NATO popular leaning, from 1991 to 2013, Ukraine could not join NATO, nor could it join a Russian-dominated union without coercion, and the attempts, of its respective westernizers and easternizers to do so, backfired. The pressures to simplify and choose sides came from both ends, East and West. Their symmetry eliminated the more complex, but better, cooperative options. Their moral non-equivalence ultimately drove Ukrainians into choosing the side of the West. …read more
Source: Atlantic Community