Subtle Balance:Ukrainian Foreign Policy Within The Political Games Of The Eu And Russia

After the fall of Soviet Union,in the European region emerged two major powers,and each of them came up with their own geopolitical projects,one of them being the EU's "European" geopolitical project"(with Eastern Partnership as a central initiative),another-Russia-s "Eurasian"geopolitical project(with Eurasian economic union as a central initiative).Both of the projects have Ukraine as their focal point.Looking from this perspective,in 1990s the main task for Ukraine as a newly independent state was to develop an elaborate foreign policy that would make it possible for Ukraine to enhance country's security and stability in the view of its complicated position between two competing geopolitical projects.For some time this task was successfully implemented through the"multidimensional policy",or balancing policy of President V.Kuchma.But this was a short-time solution and more than ten years later the similar policy by V.Yanukovych became one of the reasons that eventually led to the Ukrainian crisis.