Ukraine: Upheaval Highlights E.U.’s Past Miscalculations and Future Dangers - by Andrew Higgens

When antigovernment protesters first took to the streets of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, late last year, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, applauded the demonstrators for “writing the new narrative” for a 28-nation bloc weighed down by economic gloom and growing public skepticism about its purpose.

Three months on, with those same pro-European protesters now victorious but their country at risk of being dismembered by Russia, Ukraine’s political tumult has instead brought back an old story line — a confrontation redolent of the Cold War that has only underscored Europe’s divisions and exposed the chasm between the bloc’s high-minded aspirations and the rough reality of geopolitics as practiced by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

European Union leaders gathered Thursday in Brussels to consider further responses to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and steps to discourage Mr. Putin from additional encroachments into eastern and southern Ukraine.

Deeply divided by the economic and political interests of individual countries, they are expected to add a few names to a list of Russians and pro-Moscow Ukrainians hit by an asset freeze and travel ban announced in Brussels on Monday, but are unlikely to deliver on earlier threats to impose broad economic sanctions.

For years before Ukraine fractured, European leaders went out of their way to reassure Moscow that their approach to Ukraine would pose no threat — that it was not the zero-sum game that Mr. Putin ultimately saw it to be. That approach clearly failed, and the question now is not just how, but whether they can draw a firmer line.

Anchored in elaborate rules and regulations, the European Union has repeatedly been caught off guard not only by Russia’s blunt methods and its disdain for established borders but also by the pace of unforeseen events in Ukraine. 

These started last November when the president then, Viktor F. Yanukovych, abruptly spurned a sweeping trade and political accord with Europe.

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