Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia

The International Institute for Strategic Studies has been a nurturing and collegial professional environment for one of us (Charap) during the course of the research and writing. His co-author (Colton) has benefited greatly from the support of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, both at Harvard University, and from the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Vienna.

A number of colleagues in several countries were kind enough to read the draft and to supply thoughtful feedback: Steedman Hinckley, Sergei Karaganov, Ivan Krastev, Andrej Krickovic, Fyodor Lukyanov, Roderic Lyne, Neil MacFarlane, Michael McFaul, Alex Pravda, Mary Sarotte, Mikhail Troitskiy and Alexandra Vacroux, who was also a terrific organisational bulwark. The final product was greatly improved as a result, although, needless to say, responsibility for it is ours alone.

John Drennan of the IISS provided yeoman research assistance for the project from its early stages through the final throes. Without his sharp eye and unflappable determination, this book would not have been possible. IISS interns Valeria Bondareva and Tetyana Sydorenko also assisted with the research, under John’s supervision. Neil Buckley of the Financial Times generously shared unpublished reporting materials from his files. We are grateful to Nicholas Redman at the IISS for commissioning this as an Adelphi book, for his patience throughout, and for giving the draft manuscript a careful review. We warmly thank Alice Aveson for her thorough copy edit, John Buck and Kelly Verity for the design of the cover and the graphics, and Gaynor Roberts for managing the editorial process. The Working Group on the Future of US–Russia Relations (supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York), while not directly involved with the book, supplied a discussion forum for many of the phenomena and ideas treated in Everyone Loses.

Finally, we are grateful to our spouses for tolerating a demanding writing schedule, particularly in the final months.

A/CFE — Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe

AA — Association Agreement

CFE — Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe

CIS — Commonwealth of Independent States

COMECON — Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

CSCE — Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe

CSTO — Collective Security Treaty Organization

DCFTA — Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement

DNR — Donetsk People’s Republic

EC — European Community

EEC — Eurasian Economic Commission

EEU — Eurasian Economic Union

ENP — European Neighbourhood Policy

EU — European Union

GDR — German Democratic Republic

GTEP — Georgia Train and Equip Program

GUAM — Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova

GUUAM — Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova

IMF — International Monetary Fund

LNR — Luhansk People’s Republic

MAP — Membership Action Plan

NATO — North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NGO — Non-governmental organisation

OHCHR — Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

OSCE — Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

PCA — Partnership and Cooperation Agreement

PfP — Partnership for Peace

PKF — Peacekeeping force

RSFSR — Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

SES — Single Economic Space

USSR — Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union

WTO — World Trade Organization

15 March 1988 — Mikhail Gorbachev repudiates Brezhnev Doctrine justifying Soviet dominance over East Central Europe

9 November 1989 — Fall of Berlin Wall

3 October 1990 — Unification of East and West Germany

19 November 1990 — CFE and Charter of Paris for a New Europe signed at CSCE

28 June 1991 — COMECON disbanded

1 July 1991 — Warsaw Pact disbanded

21 August 1991 — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania declare independence from USSR

8 December 1991 — Belavezha Accords signed, declaring end of USSR and establishment of CIS

25 December 1991 — Gorbachev resigns as president of Soviet Union

26 December 1991 — Official dissolution of Soviet Union

15 May 1992 — Collective Security Treaty (Tashkent Treaty) signed by Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

24 June 1992 — Moscow brokers end to war between Georgians and South Ossetians

21 July 1992 — Ceasefire to end conflict in Moldova’s Transnistria province

21–22 June 1993 — Three Copenhagen Criteria for enlargement of the EU adopted at European Council in Copenhagen