Worst Article About Ukraine I've Ever Read
Newsweek published this sunny look at Ukraine, which talks about how Ukraine is supposedly getting all European and turning its back on Russia more and more.
After spending several paragraphs expressing how Ukraine is trending more EU-ward, the last paragraph opens with a sentence that hilariously deflates all the joy that came before it:
"Still, Ukraine is decades away from the real prospect of EU membership..."
Perhaps in 20 or 30 years Ukraine will somehow have joined the EU, and we will then remember and admire the prescience of the writers of this piece.
Meanwhile, not one mention is made in the piece of the prime minister of Ukraine. She is locked in a brutal war of words with her former Orange Revolution partner, Viktor Yushchenko, the president of the country, which is bumming everyone out and hurting the Orange (i.e., western-outlooked) perspective more and more. The man they do mention most often, President Yushchenko, has abysmally poor approval ratings in Ukraine.
Nor is there an acknowledgment that there seems to be no end in sight to Russia's constant bullying of Ukraine through threats to cut off the gas lines, threats that they sometimes have delivered on.
To summarize: no EU prospect for "decades"; no chance of Ukraine's joining NATO; some sort of 350 million euro EU gift for something called "The Eastern Partnership," a paltry sum compared to the billions Russia requests/extorts from Ukraine each year for outstanding gas debts which may or may not in fact be real; and a fractured Orange Revolution. I'm sorry, Newsweek, but I cannot share your optimism.
After spending several paragraphs expressing how Ukraine is trending more EU-ward, the last paragraph opens with a sentence that hilariously deflates all the joy that came before it:
"Still, Ukraine is decades away from the real prospect of EU membership..."
Perhaps in 20 or 30 years Ukraine will somehow have joined the EU, and we will then remember and admire the prescience of the writers of this piece.
Meanwhile, not one mention is made in the piece of the prime minister of Ukraine. She is locked in a brutal war of words with her former Orange Revolution partner, Viktor Yushchenko, the president of the country, which is bumming everyone out and hurting the Orange (i.e., western-outlooked) perspective more and more. The man they do mention most often, President Yushchenko, has abysmally poor approval ratings in Ukraine.
Nor is there an acknowledgment that there seems to be no end in sight to Russia's constant bullying of Ukraine through threats to cut off the gas lines, threats that they sometimes have delivered on.
To summarize: no EU prospect for "decades"; no chance of Ukraine's joining NATO; some sort of 350 million euro EU gift for something called "The Eastern Partnership," a paltry sum compared to the billions Russia requests/extorts from Ukraine each year for outstanding gas debts which may or may not in fact be real; and a fractured Orange Revolution. I'm sorry, Newsweek, but I cannot share your optimism.