ABSTRACT
The recent history of Ukraine is widely framed as the clash between a country on its way to Europe and a revisionist Russia trying to redraw the map of the continent. Developments since 1991 tell a different story. Rivalling factions of post-communist elites captured the state and the economic resources. The turn from a ‘bi-vectoral’ balance game between the West and Russia to a ‘European Choice’ followed shifting interests of oligarchic groups. This constellation was used by the EU and the US to push forward geo-economic resp. geostrategic projects which Russia tried to block by annexing Crimea.
