You're reading: EUinside: Ukraine is the stake in the Eastern Partnership

There is a full unanimity among analysts in Europe that in a broader perspective it depends on Ukraine the Eastern Partnership to succeed, and in a closer perspective - Ukraine's success will depend on the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister of the country. As Martin Simecka wrote in the Prague-based magazine Respekt, "whether Ukraine with its nearly fifty million people will end up under the control of Russia or within the EU’s sphere of influence will settle the fate of the remainder of eastern Europe’s smaller countries, like Moldova, Belarus and Georgia".Currently Ukraine is in a very tough situation. In Russia, next year there will be presidential elections and, as it became clear recently, President Dmitry Medvedev ceded the right to PM Vladimir Putin to run for a third presidential term. Read the story here.