With Russian hawks circling, the west would be wise not to ignore this week’s elections in Ukraine

President Putin ultimately believes Ukraine to be part of ‘historical Russia’, and he is watching political events there closely, as Vladislav Inozemtsev explains

Ukrainians have tough political choices to make this year (AFP/Getty)

The upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine attract fairly modest attention in the west. Perhaps there’s nothing strange in that because everybody is focused either on Brexit, or on the gilets jaunes protests in France, or the fallout from the release of the Mueller report in the United States.

But however important all these issues might be, the future of Ukraine is not less crucial for Europe and for the world.

The elections of 2019 – both the presidential polls in March and April and the parliamentary elections scheduled for October – may be the first since 2010 that signal that Ukraine is losing its pro-European momentum and might turn back to some sort of “reconciliation” with Russia.