Moscow's carrot-and-stick policy is shortsighted
The controversial military agreement with Ukraine won't bring Russia many advantages, the left-liberal Berliner Zeitung concludes: "One only needs to look at Belarus's president Alexander Lukashenko. He has made it his purpose in life to demonstrate to the world his independence from Moscow each day. ... Russia has tried without success to integrate its neighbouring country through multilateral organisations. However the labours of multilateralism are not an area in which Moscow excels. The ODKB military alliance exists on paper only. ... And so Moscow keeps on trying with bilateral agreements. ... The agreement with Kiev is one such successful deal. But even that is not a sure bet. It's patently obvious that President Viktor Yanukovych wanted to outsmart his country by rushing the deal through the ratification procedure. But this is not the way to form lasting alliances, at least not in a democracy."» full article (external link, German)
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