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With less than two days to go before a much-anticipated NATO summit in Romania, U.S. President George W. Bush stopped in Kiev for meetings with the Ukrainian leadership. The big issue on the table is how to get Ukraine’s highly polarized population on board with a roadmap to NATO membership.
No one is more worried about the prospect of Ukrainian NATO membership than Russia. Moscow previously received a taste of U.S. provocations on what Russia considers its turf during Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Since then, Russia has remained on high alert for any other bold moves by Washington and its European allies to push up against the periphery of the former Soviet Union. Ukraine is the linchpin to Russia’s buffer strategy. If Kiev were to fall to NATO, Russia’s western flank would be at the mercy of its Western rivals, with only Belarus left to fend for Russian interests on Russia’s highly strategic western frontier.
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