UKRAINE’S FOREIGN POLICY AFTER THE ORANGE REVOLUTION

Sergey TOLSTOV

---

Sergey Tolstov, Leading research associate, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kiev, Ukraine)

---

Throughout the 1990s, Ukraine balanced between the world’s main centers of power in an effort to preserve its officially declared European and Euroatlantic course along with a high level of mutually advantageous economic cooperation with Russia and other CIS members.

This policy meandered along with the changing conditions and the nature of bilateral relations with the country’s key partners—America, Russia, the EU, and NATO. Nuclear disarmament and curbed hyperinflation (1994) helped Ukraine overcome international isolation and establish cooperation with the United States and NATO: in 1996, it received the status of the U.S.’s strategic partner, and in 1997 Ukraine signed the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Ukraine’s stronger position in the West and its contacts with the Central European structures helped it settle certain conflicts caused by the Soviet Union’s disintegration. I have in mind the Ukrainian-Russian agreements on the Black Sea Fleet, the basic state agreements with Russia and Rumania, and the country’s permanent contacts with Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova.

Looking back, it can be said that Kiev has been consistently and successfully moving ahead in the Euroatlantic and post-Soviet directions. Ukraine has obviously been trying, more or less consciously, to adapt itself to the emerging international system. However, although under President Kuchma Ukraine’s relations with NATO were an…………………

---

Please fill subscription form to obtain full text of this jounal