Ukraine's leadership appears incapable of getting anything right in its bid for better relations with the European Union. Last week (12 September), it suspended the trial of Yulia Tymoshenko, an opposition leader and former prime minister. The move was supposed to send a conciliatory signal following criticism from Europe and the United States, and ahead of a summit in Warsaw on 29 September of leaders from the EU and the Eastern Partnership, which includes Ukraine. Instead, the suspension appeared to prove a point made by Tymoshenko from the start of her trial: that it is an entirely political affair or – as Carl Bildt, Sweden's foreign minister, called it earlier this month – a “show trial”. Read the story here.
