Is a Stable Agreement Possible Between Russia and Ukraine?

Samuel Charap, Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia, IISS
Paper delivered at the Danyliw Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, Saturday 1 November 2014
Politics, principles, and conscience demand that Ukraine make no agreements with Russia. After the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea and incitement followed by direct intervention in the east, it would be unseemly at best and treasonous at worst for Kyiv to engage in any sort of deal-making with Moscow today – or so one is sometimes told in Ukraine’s corridors of power or in Washington.
But an unsentimental assessment of the facts suggests that a political settlement between Russia and Ukraine is not only desirable but also – and perhaps more importantly – necessary for Ukraine’s continued survival. Such a settlement would be more important in the short to medium term than Western support – even support at the level described in official rhetoric, let alone the far more modest reality. And while the EU Association Agreement (AA) might be critical for the long run, the lack of a settlement with Russia could easily render it irrelevant.
That Russia’s acquiescence to – if not outright support for – the AA and Ukraine’s broader European aspirations would be necessary for their success has always been too politically uncomfortable to acknowledge. But noble intentions cannot overcome the fact that Ukraine’s economy is highly dependent on Russia in a variety of ways that the West cannot afford to undo.
This dependency is multifaceted.