Ukraine in the Foreign Policy of the United Kingdom in the Context of European Integration (1991 – 2019)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to show the peculiarities of the formation, changes and implementation of the UK foreign policy towards Ukraine and its strategy of European integration in the context of the development of the EU’s CFSP at the turn of the 20th – 21st centuries. The research methodology – principles of historicism, systematicity, general scientific methods of logic, comparative analysis, special-historical methods (historiographic analysis, historical-systemic, chronology, historicalgenetic). The research novelty is that it presents a history study of the formation of the UK’s policy towards Ukraine since its independence in 1991 in the context of the kingdom’s membership of the European Union, the formation of its foreign and security policy in the Eastern European direction. The realities of modern international relations, notably the Brexit process, the challenges and threats posed by Russian military aggression against Ukraine are taken into account. The Conclusions. The research has been established that the policy of the European Union and Great Britain towards Ukraine at the end of the XX century was formed under the influence of conjuncture of international relations. Governments of the kingdom supported the European integration of Ukraine, but in their relations with official Kyiv they took the interests of Moscow. In the early 2000s, the British government partially sacrificed its interests in Eastern Europe in favor of Russia and made compromise with the main partners in EU to expand the integration, which in the conditions of the largest in the history “wave” of the expansion didn’t want to burden themselves with additional obligations. In general, Great Britain despite the volatility of the dynamics of intergovernmental relations and the complexity of the international conjuncture, acted as one of the most consistent supporters of the European integration of Ukraine. In the conditions of the beginning of the Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine шт 2014, the leadership of Great Britain actively supported decision of the European Union to introduce anti-Russian sanctions. Great Britain provided assistance to the Ukrainian Army and the victims of the military conflict in the East of Ukraine. However, with the exit from the EU, the strategic importance of relations with Great Britain for Ukraine as an ally will diminish significantly. The completion of the Brexit process can have negative consequences for Ukraine’s international position in Europe and will strengthen the pro-Russian forces in EU.