Brief/ Russia’s War on Ukraine: Two Inconvenient Truths for the EU by Zachary Paikin

In this JOINT Brief, Zachary Paikin (Researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies – CEPS) asks what sort of relationship the EU wants with Russia after the war in Ukraine. An equilibrium based on strategic containment? Peaceful coexistence? Full-blown regime change?

For the EU to speak the ‘language of power’, that means understanding that international law, multilateral institutions and rules-based cooperation are not the only mechanisms which shape today’s international relations. Because Russia’s transformation into something capable of fully integrating into a Western-led order will take decades, the status of Ukraine will be an issue which the EU will have to address in the context of an unfriendly Russia for the foreseeable future.