Ukraine signs trade agreement with EU

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Ukraine signed a free-trade and political cooperation agreement with the European Union on Friday that has been at the heart of the country's political crisis, drawing an immediate threat of "grave consequences" from Russia.

Georgia and Moldova signed similar deals, holding out the prospect of deep economic integration and unfettered access to the EU's 500 million citizens.

"Over the last months, Ukraine paid the highest possible price to make her European dreams come true," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told EU leaders at a signing ceremony in Brussels.

Russia immediately said "grave consequences" would follow.

Ukraine's former pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovich turned his back on signing the EU agreement last November in favour of closer ties with Moscow, prompting months of street protests that eventually led to his fleeing the country. Soon afterwards, Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region, drawing outrage and sanctions from the United States and EU.

Thoughts OT?

I wonder what the EU and its citizens stand to benefit from a free-trade and political cooperation agreement with a divided and troubled [failed] state.

Besides that, what the **** is the EU doing granting Moldova and Georgia "unfettered" access to EU soils? The EU establishment is being watered down and diluted by all these nonsensical and premature deals. You can't just open your arms wide and embrace all these countries to undermine Russia's ambitions and political/economic ventures in the region. You may end up offering the entire EU to Russia on a silver platter this way.

Good.

@deeliman: EU is a crazy dictatorship which are run by french and german politicians who still after so many failed attempts are trying to conquer europe.

But more serious this agreement only benefits the grand idea´s of a united european states some politicians have and they still haven't found out that europe are so different that it will never succeed.

Great another mouth to feed in a already failing EU.

Let me add **** russia!!!

Not really it's the EU thats getting Fucked.

Russia took whats basically the only part of the Ukraine thats worth anything the rest only the East and South have anything of note and those areas are locked in what might as well be called civil war, whats left is basically the bankrupt resourceless west of the country that more or less has nothing to trade and will just be a resource drain on a already fragile EU.

EU and NATO expansion. Also with the hopes of setting them on paths to becoming a developed westernized(even more then they are now) first-world countries.

Spreading influence outweighs any negatives that come from this. That's what this is all about, expanding your sphere of influence. The west has gained way more then Russia out of all of this.

What people think today of it will mean nothing tomorrow.

West hasn't really gained anything, the only thing this and the Iraq conflict has done is speed up the fall of the Dollar.

You didn't read did you? It's about gaining influence.

Influence means nothing is there's nothing worth Influencing and western Ukraine was Pro-EU anyway, all the US has managed to do is throw the country into chaos and handed half to Russia on a plate.

*sigh*

You seem to be coming from the belief that what worked for western democratic states will work in any number of other states any where in the world which is a conviction that I believe to be a fallacious and ill-founded. We had a discussion about it a few days ago in that topic regarding the possibility of U.S intervention in Iraq. The current prosperity and observed supremacy of western states are the natural progression of their historical movement. They are the fruits of the European enlightenment and the urbanization of Europe. Before they came into being, they had intense instability, wars, famines, atrocities against human rights and an overall state of ruin and decay as their antecedents. Enlightenment and progress can neither be taught nor bestowed upon, at least in any considerable scale such as in regards to an entire state. One could argue that the foreign and security policies of the western world in general and the U.S in particular in the Middle East for the past few decades were meant to serve the same purposes you spoke of in your post. Look how that worked out for the U.S and for the Middle East alike. There is no universal enlightenment and there is certainly no one size fits all approach for the prosperity and well-being of inherently and intricately different nations and peoples.

Another erroneous and misguided belief you seem to have that spreading influence and increasing the sheer scope of your hegemony outweigh any possible negatives that could result from that. Most past advanced and noteworthy historical civilizations and empires spread the most right before their demise and abolition. Any empire, no matter how affluent and capable it might be, can only expand so much before it gets to a point where it can no longer sustain and fuel its expansion. If the EU continues its uncalculated and reckless expansion it will in time severely undermine the establishment of the EU and it may eventually offer eastern Europe in a silver platter for the Russians whom you claim to be benefiting very little of and at a disadvantage in the current status quo.

History has taught us that all ambitions and delusions of an all encompassing and boundless empire are destined to perish and bring about the demise and descent of their entertainers.

People should really forget the idea that the Ukraine is unified country it isn't, it's almost exactly the same as Iraq a country that different ethnic groups with different ideals where thrown together and told to play happy families it simply doesn't work. Another thing is people should really stop trying to force western Ideals on everybody

Iraq had saddam although brutal kept things more or less under control.

Ukraine played middle ground and tried not to learn to far toward the east or west, unfortunately we had the western Ukraine's US backed euro-maiden which threw that balance out the window and the result is the country will more than likely be torn in half.

I hope Russia is not implying military action when "grave consequences" was said.

See now, your problem here is that you don't keep shit simple.

I'm well aware that nothing will ever work in the Middle-East other then authoritarian governments.

See, now, we're talking about Eastern Europe and a country located in the south caucuses, which is way more progressive and civilized then that shit hole you keep bringing up.

If the EU and NATO keeps expanding, Russia become's more isolated. That's why they benefit little.

and NATO isn't an Empire, it's a military alliance and the EU is an Economic Union.

I can't see how I might have possibly touched on a nerve in my post. And if you are betting on eastern Europe to be "way more progressive and civilized" then you have another thing coming. Highly advanced and economically prosperous member states of the EU have been busting their balls to urbanize and transform the economies and societies of some of the oldest EU member states since their ascension to the EU; states that have always been and will always continue to be much more in harmony and culturally and historically compatible with those advanced states that constitute the real prowess of the EU. Let us also not forget the fact that those states did not suffer for decades under the reign of the USSR and the traumatic events that the societies of soviet states experienced. Yet they proved to be a sinkhole of resources and efforts. They received shitload of aid, resources, technical assistance, leniency on debts and preference in trade policies yet they yielded very little in terms of progress, political stability and market economies. Don't take my word for it, just recall the Euro crisis of 2008. Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain and Portugal shited all over the EU. Reflect further. If the establishment of the EU is yet to succeed in its endeavor with these states, how probable is it that it will succeed in eastern European states that are saddled with economic and political problems, are culturally and historically radically different in juxtaposition to western European states and have experienced decades of strife and instability and have been the battlefield of one of the most pivotal ideological confrontations of the past century?

Russia becomes isolated inasmuch as the EU can continue to afford to spread its resources thin. If it continues to do so, there will inevitably come a point in time when it will no longer afford to do that, at which point it would rapidly and rather chaotically disintegrate. Many less significant and highly dependent and not so self-sustainable EU member states will be "up for grab" at that point so Russia wouldn't have to break a sweat in order to seize some of them at least. Hitler and mighty Germany continued to push their luck until they could no longer sustain their expansion and peasantry Russia took East Germany. There are in fact two Europes, Western Europe and Eastern Europe. The EU should settle for Western Europe and turn a blind eye to Russia's desire to establish dominance and control over Eastern Europe. This way everyone will be happy. It won't happen though.

My personal guess is that you base your entire conception of progressiveness and civility on how socially liberal a society is, which I find to be quite shortsighted and superficial. Otherwise, you wouldn't be calling Eastern Europe civilized and progressive.

Signing Ukraine's economy over to the IMF was what Petro(dollar) Poroshenko was groomed to do. It was one of the expected returns on the US State Department's $5,000,000,000 investment in Ukrainian regime change.

Fortunately the deal doesn't apply to Crimea or to the free republics of Donetsk and Luhansk: They're not part of Ukraine any longer.