The post-Cold War order in Europe is finished, with Vladimir Putin its executioner. Russia's withdrawal from the Treaty of Conventional Forces, its deliberate efforts to block the election monitoring of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the Kremlin's refusal to ratify the reform of the European Court on Human Rights (Protocol No 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights) all marked its passing.
Today, Russia and the European Union have sharply opposing views on the nature of the post-Cold War European order and on the sources of instability in Eurasia.
For the EU to continue its Russia policies of the 1990s in this new context would merely reintroduce sphere-of-influence politics rather than expand the borders of democracy.