ITS very name means “borderland”. Ukraine has long been on the edge between east and west. Now this country of 46m people is poised to tilt westward by signing an association agreement with the European Union next month that also promises freer trade. But Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is putting pressure on Ukraine instead to join Belarus and Kazakhstan in a Eurasian customs union that has become his pet project. The Russian sales pitch is simple. Russia remains the single biggest market for Ukrainian exports. Ukraine would get cheaper gas (Belarus, which has also sold its gas distributor to Russia’s Gazprom, pays less than half as much). Russia would ease the country’s huge debt burden, much of it owed to Gazprom. Mr Putin was also the main backer of Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, in November 2004, when his rigged election was overturned in the orange revolution. Most alluring of all, the Russians, unlike the EU, would not make pesky demands for human rights, the rule of law, an end to corruption and a proper democracy.

Yet Ukraine would gain far more from going west. Trade is shifting to what is, in overall terms, a much bigger and richer market than the Eurasian union could ever be. The EU has a well-tried formula for helping to reform and liberalise economies from the former Soviet block. Even Ukrainian oligarchs close to Mr Yanukovych recognise that more competition from the EU will help them modernise their companies. In the future, an association agreement could even be a precursor to eventual EU membership.

But what is pushing the Ukrainians towards the EU now is not all this. It is Russian bullying. Mr Putin says Ukraine is a sovereign country able to make its own choice. But it is doubtful that he believes this. Not only did Russia rule most of Ukraine for two centuries, but Kievan Rus is seen as the cradle of the modern Russian state. Many Russians still live in Ukraine: Crimea is 80% Russian. To deter Ukraine from turning west, the Russians briefly imposed trade restrictions recently, even banning chocolate imports. A Kremlin adviser has called the signing of an association agreement “suicide”, warned of a Ukrainian default and even threatened to split apart the country’s Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking halves (see article).

Free Yulia

When Armenia was pushed around by Russia, it caved and decided to join the Eurasian union. But the response in Georgia and Moldova has been to move closer to the EU. Similarly, in Ukraine, polls show that support for the association agreement has risen to over 50%. Mr Yanukovych has no desire to play second fiddle in a club dominated by Mr Putin. But Russia’s stance has also injected geopolitics into the debate. Some Europeans argue that, to head off any risk of losing Ukraine to Mr Putin, the EU should relax its conditions for the association agreement, especially its demand that Mr Yanukovych’s political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, should be released from jail, where she has languished since her politically motivated trial in June 2011.

That would be a mistake. The EU’s pressure has been working. Ukraine may still be a corrupt oligarchy, but it has been making reforms demanded by Brussels. It is widely expected that Mrs Tymoshenko will soon be sent to Germany for medical treatment; she may be released thereafter. More generally, the value and appeal of an association agreement lies precisely in the conditions it sets for liberalisation and reform: to soften these for one special case would weaken them for all. The EU would keep leverage even after an association agreement is signed. Brussels hopes to implement its free-trade elements immediately, but it needs ratification by national parliaments to come fully into force; that process will probably last until beyond the next Ukrainian presidential election in early 2015.

If Russia sticks to its threats, Ukraine will also need financial assistance from the Europeans to see it through the winter. It should get it. The EU could also ease its visa regime and help more students go west. To both sides, Ukraine is the most valuable prize left in eastern Europe. Indeed, this moment could be as critical for the region as the decision in the 1990s to admit the ex-communist countries of central Europe to the EU. Fortunately, thanks to Mr Putin’s inept bullying, the prize should now fall into Europe’s lap.