ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a constructivist analysis of the first crisis in the power balance between President Victor Yushchenko and then-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovich engendered by the latter's statements on Ukraine–NATO relations nearly a month after his taking office. It contains an account only of official and published information. Among the numerous problems in international relations theory, there is one of particular importance for the Ukrainian case. It deals with the interplay of home and foreign policy. A coherent and enforceable foreign policy concept has consequently been substituted by a set of multiple discourses employed selectively for both external and internal purposes. The only case in which strategic partnership discourse was appreciated by Ukraine higher than by the partner was the strategic partnership with the US. However, the relationship with the US hardly fell into this category since it evolves by its own separate logic and, objectively, has little value in Ukrainian domestic debates.
