Whether we like it or not, foreign policy choices increasingly have domestic consequences in the post-Soviet world. An alignment with Russia can bring Russian-style corruption and can inspire the rise of Russian-style xenophobia and homophobia, too. An alignment with Europe and NATO has different consequences. With Russian financial and political support, for example, Ukraine’s ousted president, Viktor Yanukovych, was able to rob his country’s coffers and destroy its army and its bureaucracy. If the new Ukrainian government stays on its current path and makes a different set of alliances — with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, even NATO — it will end up with different domestic economic policies, too.
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