From Weaponized Interdependence to Defensive Statecraft: Ukraine’s Balancing Act Between EU Integration and Russian Leverage
Thursday, November 6, 2025 3:45 pm – 5:15 pm CET/GMT+1W15 Kidd Hall
A guest lecture by Dr. Inna Melnykovska from the Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, will focus on Ukraine’s experience after 2014 to explore how, despite strong incentives to cut economic ties with Russia, Ukraine remained dependent in some sectors until the full-scale invasion in 2022, while other sectors moved closer to the EU even before formal agreements were in place. This talk highlights how domestic business alignments and bureaucratic coalitions shape strategic choices between EU integration and Russian leverage.
The lecture is a part of the class HI131 “Ukraine since 1986. History of a Post-Communist Transformation“ and is open to the BCB community and interested academics.
Inna Melnykovska is a Research Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute. Her research focuses on political economy, business–state relations, democratic resilience, and Europeanization in Eastern Europe, with a particular emphasis on Ukraine’s transformation under EU external and enlargement policies and in the context of war and geoeconomic competition. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Free University of Berlin.
Email: [email protected]