Every week brings grim and dramatic news from the war in Ukraine: Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian convoys; Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons; captured towns liberated by Ukrainian forces; young Russian men fleeing the draft. Yet it is no accident that Europe’s most destructive conflict since the second world war is taking place on Ukrainian soil. After the cold war, most of central and eastern Europe, including the three Baltic states that had broken free from the Soviet Union, were brought into Nato and the EU. But Ukraine remained a place of uncertain allegiance, neither in western alliance structures, nor aligned with Moscow, nor officially neutral.
每周都有关于乌克兰战争的严峻而戏剧性的消息：俄罗斯袭击乌克兰民用车队；弗拉基米尔•普京(Vladimir Putin)威胁使用核武器；被乌克兰军队解放的城镇；逃离兵役的俄国年轻人。然而，二战以来欧洲最具破坏性的冲突发生在乌克兰的土地上并非偶然。冷战结束后，中欧和东欧的大部分国家，包括脱离苏联的三个波罗的海国家，都加入了北约和欧盟。但乌克兰仍然是一个忠诚度不确定的地方，既不在西方联盟结构中，也不与莫斯科结盟，也没有正式中立。