Making Western assistance to Kyiv more effective is crucial to Ukraine’s future. Yet the West’s current approach is plagued by a strategic defect. When Western aid and Kyiv’s reforms reach a tipping point, they will trigger increasingly aggressive counter-reactions from Moscow for domestic political reasons in Russia. Until Ukraine’s fundamental security challenges are met, Western support may be useless or, paradoxically, even counterproductive. Unless Ukraine’s sovereignty becomes better protected, Russian President Vladimir Putin will remain free to react to future Ukrainian achievements however he prefers. As long as the Russian elite perceives the costs of interfering in Ukraine as relatively low, Moscow may be unable to resist the temptation to continue undermining or even deeply disrupt Ukraine’s social stability.
Under the combined pressure from Ukrainian NGOs and Western governments, Ukraine’s reforms are moving slowly yet steadily ahead. The country is on the right path. If things go well, within five to ten years, Ukraine could become a country with less corruption than today. By then, the country should have a functional public administration, a nascent decentralized state structure, and a more efficient rule of law. Ukraine will not be Switzerland of course, but it will have become markedly different from Ukraine’s neo-Soviet “brother nations” of Russia and Belarus.
