| Summary/Abstract |
TWO CONSECUTIVE ENLARGEMENTS of NATO - membership for the Central European Three (Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic) in 1991 and the "big bang" of enlargement of March 2004 - made Ukraine, a seat of instability, a borderland between two Europes: the West and Russia. The unresolved dilemma of common spaces of Greater Europe made the planned and realized expansions of Western alliances the crucial point of the relationships between Russia and the West. The West which did not hesitate to push into the post-Soviet space, a zone of Russia's special interests, in two directions (NATO and the EU) merely fanned the smoldering conflict; the color revolutions in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004 revealed its depth and systemic nature.
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