Academic literature on the topic 'Euromaidan'

Abstract Euromaidan events represented a major political issue for discussion among Russian political analysts. While from a distance the perception in Russian society might seem monolithic, a closer look suggests that Euromaidan events spurred multiple reactions within the population. To demonstrate this, the article describes the different perceptions of Euromaidan in 108 texts published by Russian academics between 2013 and 2018. While analyzing the argumentation of these texts, it is possible to identify two main differences—terminology in the use of either coup or revolution to describe the happenings, and the importance of the local context for the course of events. Significant differences among texts allow us to conclude that there have been various interpretations of Euromaidan among Russian academics. This conclusion not only sheds new light on the state of public debate in the Russian Federation but can be also seen as a contribution to the debate about how so-called modern authoritarian regimes operate.

Book review of Marta Dyczok. Ukraine’s Euromaidan: Broadcasting Through Information Wars with Hromadske Radio.Preface by David R. Marples, E-International Relations Publishing, 2016, www.e-ir.info/2016/03/22/open-access-book-ukraines-euromaidan-broadcasting-through-information-wars-with-hromadske-radio/. E-IR Open Access, edited by Stephen McGlinchey. vi, 103 pp. Map. $23.51, paper.

This article examines the reverberations in Russia of the Euromaidan protests and the fall of the Yanukovych regime in Ukraine. It shows how the events in Kyiv provoked a major crisis in the Russian nationalist movement, which was riven by vituperative denunciations, the ostracism of prominent activists, the breakdown of friendships, the rupture of alliances, and schisms within organizations. Focusing on pro-Kremlin nationalists and several tendencies of opposition nationalists, it argues that this turmoil was shaped by three factors. First, the Euromaidan provoked clashes between pro-Kremlin nationalists, who became standard-bearers of official anti-Euromaidan propaganda, and anti-Putin nationalists, who extolled the Euromaidan as a model for a revolution in Russia itself. Second, the events in Ukraine provoked ideological contention around issues of particular sensitivity to Russian nationalists, such as the competing claims of imperialism and ethnic homogeneity, and of Soviet nationalism and Russian traditionalism. And third, many nationalists were unprepared for the pace of events, which shifted rapidly from an anti-oligarchic uprising in Kyiv to a push for the self-determination of ethnic Russians in Crimean and southeast Ukraine. As a result, they were left in the uncomfortable position of appearing to collaborate with the oppressors of their compatriots.

Written in the beginning of December 2013, this article was inspired by two events that temporarily coincided: the massive manifestations in Kiyv’s Maidan Square, called ‘Euromaidan’ and the release of Pussy Riot from prison in Russia. Asking myself if those two events were pure coincidence, or if there were a certain political or at least media causality between the two, I try to analyse both processes (Euromaidan media representation and Pussy Riot media plot) as new myths (referring to Barthes, McLuhan and Meletinskii’s theories) of political resistance in post-Soviet territories, created through the media.

The aim of this article is to define the role of the organisations established by the parliamentary opposition during the Euromaidan. The political opposition created the National Resistance Headquarters and the All-Ukrainian Union “Maidan” at that time. In the long term, they were supposed to become a tool for the opposition in the upcoming presidential elections. In the short term, in turn, they were to coordinate the actions of protesters during the Euromaidan throughout Ukraine. In order to achieve the research objective, the historical, systemic, and case study methods were used.

This study focuses on mediated representations of Europe during Euromaidan and the subsequent Ukraine–Russia crisis, analysing empirical material from Ukraine, Poland and Russia. The material includes articles from nine newspapers, diverse in terms of political and journalistic orientation, as well as interviews with journalists, foreign policymakers and experts, drawing also on relevant policy documents as well as online and historical sources. The material is examined from the following vantage points: Michel Foucault’s discursive theory of power, postcolonial theory, Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, Jacques Derrida’s hauntology and Ernesto Laclau’s concept of the empty signifier. The methods of analysis include conceptual history (Reinhart Koselleck), critical linguistics and qualitative discourse analysis (a discourse-historical approach inspired by the Vienna school) and quantitative content analysis (in Klaus Krippendorff’s interpretation). The national narratives of Europe in Ukraine, Russia and Poland are characterised by a dependence on the West. Historically, these narratives vacillated between idealising admiration, materialist pragmatics and geopolitical demonising. They have been present in each country to some extent, intertwined with their own identification. These discourses of Europe were rekindled and developed on during Euromaidan (2013–2014). Nine major Ukrainian, Russian and Polish newspapers with diverse orientations struggled to define Europe as a continent, as the EU or as a set of values. Political orientation defined attitude; liberal publications in all three countries focused on the positives whereas conservative and business newspapers were more critical of Europe. There were, however, divergent national patterns. Coverage in Ukraine was positive mostly, in Russia more negative and the Polish perception significantly polarised. During and after Euromaidan, Ukrainian journalists used their powerful Europe-as-values concept to actively intervene in the political field and promote it in official foreign policy. This was enabled by abandoning journalistic neutrality. By comparison, Russian and Polish journalists were more dependent on the foreign policy narratives dispensed by political elites and more constrained in their social practice.
Denna studie undersöker hur Europa framställs i medier under Euromajdan och den efterföljande ukrainska-ryska krisen genom att analysera empiriskt material från Ukraina, Polen och Ryssland. Materialet omfattar artiklar från nio tidningar med olika politisk och journalistisk orientering samt intervjuer med journalister, diplomater och utrikespolitiska experter. I analysen ingår även relevanta politiska dokument, historiska texter och webbkällor. Materialet studeras utifrån en kombination av olika teoriperspektiv: Michel Foucaults diskursiva maktteori, postkolonial teori, Jürgen Habermas offentlighetsteori, Pierre Bourdieus fältteori, Jacques Derridas ”hauntology” och Ernesto Laclaus begrepp ”empty signifier”. Analysmetoderna omfattar begreppshistoria (Reinhart Koselleck), kritisk lingvistik samt kvalitativ diskursanalys (diskurshistorisk metod inspirerad av Wienerskolan) och kvantitativ innehållsanalys (i Klaus Krippendorffs tolkning). Historiskt karakteriseras Europaberättelserna i de tre länderna av det starka beroendet av Västeuropa, vilket reaktivt leder till perioder då Väst förkastas. Berättelserna rör sig mellan tre huvudpoler: idealiserande beundran, materialistisk pragmatism och geopolitisk demonisering. De är inte fast knutna till ett visst land utan har i skiftande grad varit närvarande i dem alla. Dock har svagare aktörer haft en idealiserande tendens eftersom Europa uppfattas som en källa till viktiga teknologier och moderna samhällsfunktioner. Författare i alla tre länderna hade svårigheter att definiera Europas gränser och eftersom detta problem kopplades till ländernas egna nationella identifikation brukar europeiskhet konstrueras som en våg som successivt försvagas ju vidare den sprids mot öster från sitt epicentrum någonstans i Nordvästeuropa. Dessa berättelser har reaktiverats och vidareutvecklats under 2013–2014. I de analyserade tidningarna uppfattas Europa ofta som en kontinent (främst i Polen) eller identifieras med EU (särskilt i Ryssland och Ukraina), men det är också vanligt att använda Europa som uttryck för en uppsättning värden (mindre vanligt i Polen och mest vanligt i Ukraina). Ideologiskt fokuserar de liberala tidningarna i alla tre länderna positiva värden medan konservativa tidningar och finansblad associerar Europa med negativa vär- den. Bland de positiva värdena dominerar de humanistiska i de ukrainska tidningarna och de rationalistisk-teknokratiska i det ryska urvalet. Den ukrainska pressen har mest positiv bevakning av Europas framgångar medan den ryska pressen innehåller mest av negativ bevakning där Europa ses som fiende och förlorare. Ukrainska och ryska diskurser skiljer sig mycket åt i frågan om det egna landet bör genomföra europeiska reformer (Ukraina) eller ej (Ryssland). Den polska bevakningen polariseras mellan positiva och negativa värden. Under och efter Euromajdan använde ukrainska journalister det kraftfulla begreppet om värdenas Europa för att intervenera i det politiska fältet och rekontextualisera denna Europaberättelse som den officiella utrikespolitikens berättelse. Detta blev paradoxalt möjligt tack vare den svaga professionaliseringen som tillät journalisterna att tillfälligt överge sin journalistiska neutralitet. I kontrast mot Ukraina begränsade Rysslands starka objektivitetsdiskurs journalisterna i deras sociala och politiska praktik. Där var det snarare den officiella politiska diskursen som övertogs och rekontextualiserades av medierna. Polska journalister var osäkra på sitt eget inflytande och arbetade i en cirkelrörelse där diskurser från mediesfären rekontextualiserades i det politiska fältet och omvänt.
Ця студія присвячена медіярепрезентаціям Европи під час Евромайдану та дальшої українсько-російської кризи, аналізуючи емпіричний матеріял з України, Польщі й Росії. Отой матеріял охоплює статті з дев’яти розмаїтих своєю політичною і журналістською орієнтацією газет, а також інтерв’ю з журналістами, дипломатами та експертами зі зовнішньої політики, користаючи при тім із доречних політичних документів, онлайнових та історичних джерел. Матеріял розглянуто з перспективи дискурсивної теорії влади Мішеля Фуко, постколоніяльної теорії, теорії громадськости Юрґена Габермаса, теорії полів П’єра Бурдьє, “hauntology” Жака Дерріди та поняття «порожнього означника» Ернеста Лякляу. Методи аналізу охоплюють історію понять (Райнгарт Козелек), критичну лінґвістику та якісний дискурс-аналіз (дискурсивно-історичний підхід підо впливом Віденської школи) і кількісний контент-аналіз (в інтерпретації Клявса Кріппендорфа). Історично національним наративам Европи у цих трьох країнах притаманна залежність від Заходу, яка також стимулює періоди його відштовхування. Ті наративи вагаються між трьома головними полюсами: захопленого ідеалізму, матеріялістичного прагматизму та геополітичного очорнення. Вони не є винятково притаманними якійсь одній країні і певною мірою присутні в кожній. Проте слабші актори схильні до ідеалізації, бо Европу сприймають за джерело важливого технологічного й соціяльного інструментарію. Авторам в усіх трьох країнах трудно визначити межі Европи, і, тимчасом як ця проблема переплелася була з їхньою власною ідентифікацією, европейськість зазвичай конструйовано на кшталт хвилі, що згасає в міру руху на Схід од епіцентру, розташованого десь ото в Північно-Східній Европі. Оці дискурси посилилися й розвинулися в 2013 – 2014 рр. В аналізованих газетах Европу асоціюють із цілим континентом (найчастіше в Польщі) або з ЕС (у Росії та в Україні), але розповсюджена й схема, де Европу використано на позначення певного набору вартостей, зрідка в Польщі, але найчастіше в Україні. Ідеологічно ліберальні видання в усіх трьох країнах зосереджені на позитивних вартостях, тоді як консервативні та бізнесові газети схиляються до неґативних. Серед позитивних якостей в українських газетах переважають гуманістичні, тоді як раціонально-технократичні типові для російської вибірки. Українська преса має найбільше позитивного висвітлення успішної Европи, а російські газети мають найбільше з усіх неґативного (Европа як ворог чи невдаха). Українські та російські дискурси найдужче різняться щодо того, чи своя країна мусить здійснювати европейські реформи (Україна) а чи ні (Росія). Польське висвітлення розривається межи позитивними а негативними вартостями. Під час та після Евромайдану українські журналісти використали впливове поняття Европи яко гуманістичних вартостей, щоб активно втрутитися в політичне поле й реконтекстуалізувати цей наратив Европи як офіційний наратив зовнішньої політики держави. Цьому парадоксально сприяла слабка професіоналізація, що дозволяє іґнорувати вимогу неупереджености. Порівняно з цим, потужний дискурс газетярської об’єктивности в Росії стримує журналістів у репертуарі соціяльної дії, відтак то радше медії реконтекстуалізують офіційний дискурс. Польські ж газетярі, непевні щодо власного впливу, працюють у замкненому колі, де політичне поле реконтекстуалізує наративи медіясфери і навпаки.

Building on interviews with young activists of the Euromaidan movement, this paper examines the possibilities for civil society engagement in today’s Ukraine. In Ukraine, the level of civil society engagement is one of the lowest in the postsoviet world, while at the same time millions of people take part in large protest movements. The material shows that, and present explanations to why, young people who are keen to engage do so in many ways, without this engagement resulting in a long-term civil society engagement.

This study examines how two media sources—one Russian and one Ukrainian—portray Russia and Ukraine before, during, and after the EuroMaidan crisis in Ukraine. Russian-language texts posted between January 2013 and December 2015 on the sites Ukranews.com (a Ukrainian news outlet) and TASS.ru (Russian) were organized in a corpus of over 20,000,000 words. This study analyzes the nouns “Россия” (“Russia”) and “Украина” (“Ukraine”) according to the verbal predicates that attach to either noun. The results demonstrate predictable variation in the agency of the two entities in response to cultural events and contexts. The analysis of the corpus data operationalizes a combined model of agency using Halliday and Matheissen’s (2004) classification of processes, shaped by the animacy of the actor, and Dik’s (1989) States of Affairs Matrix, which prioritizes the actor’s physical effect in space and time. In this study, predicates of “Russia” and “Ukraine” are given numeric scores based on the models. Then, a new method of checking the validity of these models is tested by examining other entities that take the same predicates as Russia and Ukraine. Measurements from discrete time periods reveal how the agency of both entities changed before, during, and after EuroMaidan.

Dissertação de mestrado em Relações Internacionais (Estudos Europeus), apresentada à Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra, sob a orientação de Maria Raquel Freire.
A Teoria Construtivista surgida no contexto do final da Guerra Fria e integrada na quarta geração dos debates das Teorias das Relações Internacionais, procurou trazer novas respostas aos novos desafios que a realidade internacional apresentava, nomeadamente, introduziu a importância da questão da identidade e do poder normativo dos discursos na construção dos significados sociais. Cynthia Weber (2010) avançou com a ideia de que os significados sociais existentes são produzidos e transformados através dos meios de comunicação, o que permite considerar os media enquanto atores relevantes na construção da realidade social. Uma das teorias que estuda o papel dos media na construção da realidade social é a teoria de agenda-setting. Surgida pela primeira vez na obra de Walter Lippmann (1922) e desenvolvida empiricamente nos estudos de Maxwell McCombs e Donald Shaw (1972) identificou o poder dos meios de comunicação para selecionar eventos específicos (problemas, tópicos, eventos) e focar o público na sua importância e assim, informar o público sobre o que pensar e como pensar. O segundo nível da teoria – framing, desenvolvido por Robert Entman, defendia ainda que ao selecionar certos aspetos da realidade e torná-los mais visíveis, os media oferecem ao público a definição e interpretação específica do problema, a avaliação moral e uma possível solução. Portanto, as duas teorias reconhecem o poder discursivo na criação da realidade e dos significados sociais. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo comparar as agendas mediáticas russas e ucranianas no período da Crise da Ucrânia, para perceber o impacto que os media tiveram sobre a opinião pública. Tendo em conta o facto de nestes países se receber informação maioritariamente a partir dos media tradicionais, e a vontade de entender qual foi a imagem da crise construída dentro destes dois países, foram analisados apenas os noticiários dos canais de televisão nacionais. De forma a compreender o impacto do discurso mediático na construção da realidade para estes dois países foram analisadas duas fases principais do conflito, as manifestações do Euromaidan e o caso da Crimeia. Com a aplicação da análise no âmbito da teoria de agenda-setting – framing, olhou-se a evolução do discurso mediático, a linguagem utilizada para caracterizar os atores, eventos e decisões políticas, bem como foram identificados os principais focos, acentos e avaliações dos conteúdos. A análise efetuada com aplicação do método de framing mostrou que os temas presentes nas agendas de ambos os países foram semelhantes, contudo a natureza da leitura, os focos da cobertura e interpretação dos eventos divergiram bastante. A utilização de conceitos como discurso e identidade, analisados no âmbito da teoria construtivista, permitiram identificar as normas que compunham o discurso mediático de ambos os países para legitimar determinadas ações das autoridades, bem como compreender como a realidade construída afetou a identidade nacional russa e ucraniana. Notou-se a utilização da tática discursiva “demonização do outro” pelos media de ambos os países em diferentes períodos de tempo. No que diz respeito à identidade ucraniana, que após a Independência ainda não está completamente formada, o discurso mediático que divergia nos canais nacionais ucranianos teve impacto negativo e no geral favoreceu a ideia da “nação partilhada”. Contudo, com o caso da Crimeia as agendas mediáticas ucranianas criaram a imagem da Rússia enquanto o “agressor externo”, o que pode ser visto como solução temporária para o problema da identidade ucraniana. No caso da Rússia, o discurso mediático afetou positivamente a identidade nacional e confirmou a hipótese sobre as aspirações civilizacionistas e estatistas das autoridades russas. O estudo sublinhou a construção de realidades divergentes sobre os acontecimentos ucranianos pelas agendas mediáticas, bem como identificou a violação dos padrões jornalísticos por ambos os lados. Além disso, a cobertura e a leitura feita pelos media ucranianos e russos sobre os acontecimentos políticos reflete a posição/visão do estado ou das elites, e como resultado, afeta a opinião pública e a objetividade dos eventos transmitidos.

HIMA! / NOW! - translation from Armenian In light of recent and ongoing protests, demonstrations and riots in Ukraine, Egypt, Israel or Armenia, some actual questions arise such as how is the built environment used as an area of protest, how it is chosen as a focal point or path for resistance, what are the common characteristics of revolutionary spaces and how the environment effects on success. Lack of democracy from the government and in everyday life of Armenia society, total corruption and feeling of impunity oligarchy, the government and most of governmental institutions, weak economic growth accompanied by alarming number of emigration as well as successful scenarios in neighboring Georgia and Ukraine, force to predict a inescapable eruption of protests Armenia in near future. History shows that protests and civil disobedience are inevitable and necessary expressions of dissent in any democratic nation and country. However there are different passive tools to improve democratic institutions in the society and country in general such as public forums, open discussions and debates, freedom of speech and media etc. With this project I want to create a great Park with generous program embracing main democratic principles as a Public Space and Forum for everyone in capital of Armenia, Yerevan, BUT in case of nascent civil resistance the Park will become a space as a tool with urban inventory that people can use, manipulate, claim in order to defend their values and save own life's. This will be a Playground/Fortress for Democracy !

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian society faced a new reality. The new reality involved consolidation and transformation of collective identities. The reinvigoration of national identity led to a change in the emphasis on how the past was dealt with – many things which were regarded as negative by the Soviet regime became presented as positive in independent Ukraine. The war-time nationalist movement, represented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), became one of the re-configured themes of history. While most of the studies of memory of the OUN and UPA concentrated on the use of this history by nationalist parties, this study goes beyond the analysis and scrutinizes the meaning of this history in nation- and state-building in relation to memory work realized on the small-scale regional and local levels. Moreover, this book focuses not only on the “producers” of memory, but also on the “consumers” of memory, the area which is largely understudied in the field of memory studies. Drawing on studies about post-colonial subjectivities and theories of remediation developed in memory studies, this book explores the changes in memory culture of contemporary Ukraine and examines the role of memory in producing new meanings under the rapidly changing conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union up to 2014. The book contributes to the studies of memory culture in post-Communist countries as well as to the studies of society in contemporary Ukraine.

The present work presents the model of symbol analysis in media texts. The critical case of the Ukrainian protest movement Euromaidan is used to build up such a model and to link it with the phenomenological meanings. It relies on empirical data from the coverage by the tabloid and quality media of three countries: Ukraine, the country where the protest took place; Poland, its neighboring, geographically, culturally close country; and Germany, more geographically and historically distant country from Ukraine. Three different national perspectives are compared. The proposed model of analysis of every particular symbol includes the following stages: the identification of objects, signifier, subject, conception, concept in a symbol; interpretation of its denotation, connotation, and signification; identification of protest life-world structures in symbol's meanings; analysis of spatiality, temporality, numerality, and power relations in some symbols that display such qualities, and interpretations of dominant complex symbolic representations on the basis of the coded symbols. The combination of symbol theory, post-structuralism, and phenomenology lays the theoretical foundation for the analysis of symbolic meanings across cultures. The focus is shifted from the coverage of events towards the coverage of experience of events. The latter is structured and described in terms of the life-world theory by Alfred Schutz. The research relies on the broad understanding of symbols proposed by the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer and developed by his followers, interpreters and authors of post-structural and phenomenological symbol theories (Langer, 1954; Goodman, 1988; Bourdieu, 1991; Janz, 2001; Dreher, 2003). This dissertation also sets the task of comparing symbols between tabloid and quality press to test whether there are any visible differences between them in terms of symbol selection and in terms of their qualities and relations. One of the findings of this research is the cross-national symbol that unites all three countries. This is the symbol-concept "barricade". It is the most visible symbol in the Polish and German media coverage of the Euromaidan life-world and the third most visible symbol in the Ukrainian media. The biggest number of symbols in all three countries under study is grouped around the symbolic representation "struggle against dictatorship".

Defence date: 22 October 2018
Examining Board: Professor Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore, supervisor; Professor László Bruszt, Central European University; Professor Nina Eliasoph, University of Southern California; Professor Laurent Thévenot, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
The thesis is devoted to a micro-sociological analysis of "big" protests. Comparing Russian "For fair elections" movement with Ukrainian Euromaidan, I study how eventful identities, solidarities, and cultural representations that emerged in the course of the protests then developed and changed contributing to either socio-political change, or reproduction. I analyze dynamics of both the uprisings themselves and the dynamics of post-protest collective action. The first part of the text analyzes a phenomenon new to Russia: the politicized local activism that has emerged in the wake of the "For fair elections" protests. Urban activism in Russian has been rarely politicized; rather, it addressed "familiar", "close to home" problems and that kept distance from "politics". Anti-Putin rallies of 2011-2012 changed the landscape of Russian civic activism. Inspired by the experience of collective actions, protesters resolved to keep it going in their own neighborhoods, establishing local activist groups and tackling smaller-scale problems typical of apolitical activism, e.g., defending parks from deforestation and buildings from demolition, and working for improvements. However, activists attributed oppositional and "political" meanings to practices that had been rather apolitical before the protests of 2011-2012. Thus, my study revealed the significant eventful change in the political culture of Russian urban activism. At the same time, in many cases mass events lead to the intensifying of pre-existing political and cultural structures, cultures, identities and discourses. In the second part of the text I show that Euromaidan consecutively first weakened and then enforced the ethno-cultural and political split between Western and Eastern Ukranian citizens. While “Euromaidan” initially succeeded at creating a new civic identity that united the protesters, this identity failed to spread beyond the event. Paradoxically, the initial push for civic unity and inclusivity, when intensified, transformed into a tool of promoting exclusivity. The text is based on the analysis of in-depths interviews and focus-groups. The conclusions address the theoretical discussions within the eventful approach in social science, pragmatic and cultural sociology.

This thesis studies how the state owned news agency the RIA Novosti (РИА Новости) covered the protests, named Euromaidan. Timely the paper is limited with the end of November, 2013 and the end of February, 2014. The first part of the thesis focuses on the theoretical approaches about interdependences between the audience and the media. The next chapter covers concisely the principles and the essence of agenda setting and framing, also such concepts as frames and their functions are analyzed. In the methodological part the criteria and the scope of analysis are set up. After the methodological part the analytical part goes which focuses on the separate frames, which were constructed by the RIA Novosti. In the last chapter the conclusions were made unveiling, how the theoretical inputs and empirical outputs are correlated, and which Euromaidan's attributes were transmitted the most.

The Ukraine crisis that started with the Euromaidan protests in November 2013 appears to be a most important security crises of the post-Cold War security order. Russia's aggression against Ukraine has not just threaten the territorial integrity or sovereignty of the EU's largest neighbour, but also it has led to a rivalry between the former Cold War enemies again and even it led to the start of a period that may cause to conflict between them. The EU's approach that established the Free Trade Area between the EU and Ukraine did not give any chance of talking to third country or organizations such as the Eurasian Union. Therefore, Russia worked hard to influence on Ukraine to abandon to sing the agreement and this happened to see Ukraine’s choice as a zero-sum game. In order to understand the effect of crisis on the EU and Russia, it have to be analysed the economic sanctions imposed by the EU against Russia to resolve the crisis through diplomatic and economic means. Thus, it is necessary to look at the economic relations between Russia and the EU and this data will be obtained in Eurostat. As a result, economic sanctions helped to move the conflict from the military to the diplomatic levels. Indeed, Russia has seen that European unity gave rise to a significant impact on its economy. Also, the EU realized that the sanctions is the most powerful tool in the hands of the EU in absence of military power.