European Union leaders will again try to draw Russia’s neighbors closer at their Eastern Partnership summit starting Thursday in what has become a rite of geopolitical gamesmanship on the future of the continent.
The last summit with six eastern nations turned into a dramatic standoff over Ukraine, with then-leader Viktor Yanukovych suddenly withdrawing from signing an association with the EU and instead turning toward Moscow and President Vladimir Putin.
Since that meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, the pro-EU government elected after Yanukovych’s ouster has learned the costs of turning away from Moscow: Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, large swathes of eastern territory bordering …read more
Source: Voice of America
