The events in the Ukraine caught both neighboring geo-political power blocs – the European Union and the Russian Federation – unprepared. Ideas on how the region between the two power blocks might be approached were invalidated and both sides are under pressure to define their relationship. On the EU side the conception of a European Neighbourhood policy – a concept which would maneuver the Eastern European states willing to join into a kind of waiting room whose exit is marked by a sign reading “partnership” rather than “membership” – has been all but shattered. For relations with Russia itself the EU has not developed a strategy even after 15 years of transformation. On the Russian side its quite recently regained international reputation as a reliable political partner has suffered. The post-Soviet model of political and economic development, particularly Putin’s modernization project, which is increasingly being reduced to authoritarianism and market economics, has become less attractive in the CIS region. Of course, the CIS states have for a long time been fairly low on Russia’s list of priorities. Putin’s foreign policy is pursuing a triangular concept which seeks to bind Russia into focused strategic partnerships based on a division of labor with the USA, the European Union, and the main Asian actors China and India. In recent years in this context an increasing economization in foreign policy has been discernible: Russian foreign policy complements the energy and economic policy goals of dynamic concerns capable of operating on global markets, particularly in the energy and raw materials branches. As regards the redirection of Russian energy exports to the Asian-Pacific region we can expect a corresponding change of priorities in terms of Russian foreign and security policy. In this way the influence of Europe on Moscow will dwindle. Russia is less affected than other European countries by the aberrations of current internal EU debates: while the EU is busy with Eastern Europe and has to clear up its own constitutional question Russia can avoid this set of problems by means of the Asian-Pacific option and at the same time escape normative reproaches concerning its internal political development, generally characterized as authoritarian.