Тимоти Колтон - Everyone Loses - The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

The timing of the move was apparently due to a push from Kazakhstan’s President Nazarbaev. It came as a surprise to many, including those officials negotiating Russia’s WTO accession, who had to adjust that process to accommodate the new Customs Union.

See European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ‘Regional Trade Integration and Eurasian Economic Union’, in Transition Report 2012: Integration Across Borders , 2012, pp. 62–79, http://tr.ebrd.com/tr12/images/downloads/TR12_EN_web_bookmarks3.pdf.

Vladimir Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii — budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya segodnya’, Izvestiya , 3 October 2011.

Putin’s conception of the Eurasian bloc forming an independent pole in global politics was remarkably similar to the way in which Russian officials talked about their aspirations for Russia.

Nursultan Nazarbaev, ‘Evraziiskii Soyuz: ot idei k istorii budushchego’, Izvestiya , 25 October 2011, http://izvestia.ru/news/504908.

Putin, ‘Novyi integratsionnyi proekt dlya Evrazii’.

Denis Cenusa et al., ‘Russia’s Punitive Trade Policy Measures towards Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia’, CEPS Working Document, Centre for European Policy Studies, September 2014, pp. 7–8.

See the draft foreign-policy strategy produced for Medvedev, as leaked to the press: ‘O programme effektivnogo ispol’zovaniya na sistemnoi osnove vneshnepoliticheskikh faktorov v tselyakh dolgosrochnogo razvitiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii’, https://www.hse.ru/data/2010/09/27/1223786940/Foreign_policy_for_modernisation_program.doc.

Michael McFaul, ‘Assessing the “Reset”: Past Progress, Future Steps’, Presentation, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/sites/default/files/publications/papers/mcfaul20110415.pdf.

Michael McFaul, ‘The Russian Economy and US–Russia Relations’, Event Transcript, Peterson Institute for International Economics, 15 April 2011, https://piie.com/publications/papers/transcript-20110415mcfaul.pdf.

‘Joint Statement of the Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation in Connection with the Situation in the Kyrgyz Republic’, 24 June 2010, https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/us-russia_joint_statement_on_kyrgyzstan.pdf.

‘NATO–Russia Council Joint Statement at the Meeting of the NATO–Russia Council Held in Lisbon on 20 November 2010’, 20 November 2010, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_68871.htm.

Nikonov quoted in Gregory L. White, ‘In Secret Report, Russia Shifts Westward’, Wall Street Journal , 12 May 2010, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703565804575238291897667152.

Samuel Charap and Mikhail Troitskiy, ‘U.S.–Russia Relations in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Transcending the Zero-Sum Game’, Working Group on the Future of US–Russia Relations, September 2011, p. 19, https://futureofusrussiarelations.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/us-russiafuture_working_group_paper_1.pdf.

‘Vystuplenie na Konferentsii po voprosam mirovoi politiki’, 8 October 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1659.

‘Stenograficheskii otchet o vstreche s uchastnikami mezhdunarodnogo kluba “Valdai”’, 12 September 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/1383.

‘Interv’yu Dmitriya Medvedeva rossiiskim telekanalam’, 31 August 2008, http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/1276.

‘Remarks by Vice President Biden at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy’, 7 February 2009, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-vice-president-biden-45th-munich-conference-security-policy.

‘The Draft of the European Security Treaty’, 29 November 2009, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/6152.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, ‘Remarks on the Future of European Security’, 29 January 2010, http://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/136273.htm.

‘ASD/ISA Vershbow’s September 30 Visit to Moscow: Bilateral Cooperation, Iran, Afghanistan, Missile Defense, Military/Defense Cooperation’, released by WikiLeaks as Cable 09MOSCOW2529_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09MOSCOW2529_a.html.

State Department cable cited in Joshua Kucera, ‘U.S. Blocking NATO–CSTO Cooperation’, EurasiaNet , 12 February 2011, http://www.eurasianet.org/node/62882.

‘Memorandum, Meeting of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dmitri Medvedev on 4–5 June 2010 in Meseberg’, 5 June 2010, http://www.russianmission.eu/sites/default/files/user/files/2010-06-05-meseberg-memorandum.pdf. See also Philip Remler, ‘Negotiation Gone Bad: Russia, Germany, and Crossed Communications’, Carnegie Europe, 21 August 2013, http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=52712.

Calculations by Pierre Noel, Senior Fellow for Economic and Energy Security, International Institute for Strategic Studies, shared with the authors.

Natal’ya Grib and Oleg Gavrish, ‘Ravnotrubie’, Kommersant Ukraina , 14 May 2010, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1368732.

Vera Sitnina, ‘Tak rabotat’ nel’zya, no pridetsya’, Vremya novostei , 18 May 2010, http://www.vremya.ru/2010/83/4/253821.html.

‘Predsedatel’ Pravitel’stva Rossiiskoi Federatsii V.V.Putin vstretilsya s Prezidentom Ukrainy V.F.Yanukovichem’, 5 March 2010, http://archive.government.ru/docs/9632/.

See ‘Rossiya rasschityvaet, chto Ukraina k 2015 godu voidet v Tamozhennyi soyuz’, RIA Novosti , 9 December 2012, http://ria.ru/economy/20121209/914040052.html; Rilka Dragneva and Kataryna Wolczuk, Ukraine Between the EU and Russia (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 68.

See, for example, Evraziiskii Bank Razvitiya, ‘Ukraina i Tamozhennyi soyuz’, 2012, http://www.eabr.org/general/upload/reports/Ukraina_doklad_rus.pdf.

Valerii Kalnysh, ‘Viktor Yanukovich reshil slozhit’sya c Rossiei’, Kommersant , 8 April 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1616528.

Sergei Sidorenko, ‘Tamozhennyi soyuz — eto tol’ko pervyi etap integratsii’, Kommersant , 18 April 2011, http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1623955.

‘Posol Ukrainy v RF nazval usloviya vstupleniya v Tamozhennyi soyuz’, Zerkalo nedeli , 13 November 2012, http://zn.ua/ECONOMICS/posol_ukrainy_v_rf_nazval_usloviya_vstupleniya_v_tamozhennyy_soyuz.html.

After a deputy prime minister declared that Customs Union membership contravened Ukrainian law, then-prime minister Mykola Azarov publicly contradicted him during a visit to Moscow. See ‘Azarov zaveril Rossiyu, chto ne schitaet chlenstvo Ukrainy v Tamozhennom soyuze nezakonnym’, Zerkalo nedeli , 21 November 2012, http://zn.ua/ECONOMICS/azarov_zaveril_rossiyu,_chto_ne_schitaet_chlenstvo_ukrainy_v_tamozhennom_soyuze_nezakonnym.html.