Trend NATO and EU eastward expansion provokes an assertive Russian counter-strategy in Eurasia

Summary

The report recounts that the EU was wary from the outset of Russia-led integration, fearing it would restore Russian power and draw authoritarian states closer to new Eurasian elites, a concern Washington largely shared. When the Eurasian Economic Union nonetheless survived and grew, the West launched regular dialogues with Central Asian and Black Sea states, showed interest in energy, rare minerals and the Middle Corridor, and pursued EU enlargement and NATO's eastward expansion step by step. Russia regarded economic ties between new Eurasian states and the EU as a fatal threat to its sphere and repeatedly warned of an offensive, military response, while the EU's Eastern Partnership launched after the global financial crisis instead spurred the Eurasian union project. With five rounds of NATO enlargement and outreach to Black Sea and Central Asian states, Russia came to see itself as a besieged fortress and set out to weaken US unipolarity and build a multipolar order through geopolitics, economic integration and regionalism. The integration dilemma between the EU and Russia widened as a result, leaving new states torn between a Eurasian vector and a European vector.