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The EU-Russia summit last week in Brussels seemed almost routine. Gas, visas, Syria, and human rights were all on an agenda that proved largely fruitless. Yet, something is different and no one seems to have noticed. Relations between the European Union and its biggest neighbor are changing fundamentally.

The Europeans, of course, are focused on their own crisis and the restructuring that's necessary to pull the continent back from the brink. Beyond their own union, they are mostly looking across the Mediterranean toward the Middle East and North Africa.

The Eastern Partnership between the EU and Russia's six former Soviet neighbors is, frankly, languishing, and Ukraine is what the Russians call a "suitcase without a handle. " In other words, it can neither be carried...