Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko announced May 7 that she will not attend the European Union's official launch of its Eastern Partnership (EP) initiative at a summit to be held that same day in Prague. Although Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is still expected to attend, Timoshenko represented half of Ukraine's delegation to the summit, and since she is head of Ukraine's government her absence is telling. The EP, designed to forge closer ties between the European Union and the six former Soviet states on the bloc's periphery — Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan — has been widely anticipated for a year, but its potential for producing concrete results has been brought into question as the list of leaders not attending the inaugural summit grows longer. Poland initially proposed the EP in May 2008 as a means of establishing closer relations with states that are on the European Union's eastern doorstep by increasing trade and investment, easing visa requirements and fostering closer cooperation in general. Poland, a staunchly anti-Russian former Soviet satellite state, led the initiative because it wanted to further integrate the former Soviet states (Belarus and Ukraine in particular) into the Western bloc in order to wean them away from Russia's firm grip. The EP initially gained traction and support from Germany, which was eager to see a counter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union initiative — a measure meant to build stronger ties among the European, North African and Middle Eastern states surrounding the Mediterranean Sea but excluding the many European states that do not lie along the Mediterranean coast. To gain momentum and credibility, Warsaw also sought the assistance of long-serving EU member Sweden to present the initiative. Sweden was an effective complement to Poland to lead the EP because it shares similar suspicions of Russian designs in the former Soviet arena. The EP served as a platform for the European Union to expand its influence in the former Soviet sphere to counter Russia without going so far as granting these countries EU membership (which takes years to complete and requires overcoming numerous obstacles). Therefore, many EU members accepted the EP; and after the European Council approved the initiative in June 2008, the date to formally launch the introductory summit was scheduled for May 2009. The European Union laid out many plans and made numerous gestures to the six states over the past year in preparation for the summit. But it was Russia, which saw the EP — like proposed NATO expansions — as yet another Western move to encroach on its turf, that made maneuvers significant enough to cause the region's geopolitical landscape to shift over the last 12 months. Only months after the EP's proposal, Moscow went to war with Georgia and quickly defeated its former Soviet state in the Caucasus, causing shockwaves throughout the entire region. All of the countries of the former Soviet sphere (and beyond) immediately acknowledged Russia's resurgence and sought to re-establish their relations with Moscow accordingly. While the subtleties of the various relationships differed, each neighboring state shared a fear of what Russia might do next; memories of the Soviet era were still fresh in these countries' minds, and Moscow left them all thinking long and hard about what it means to be a post-Soviet state. These developments are reflected in what the EP has become in the wake of the Russo-Georgian war: little more than a talk shop. Besides Timoshenko, several high-level leaders representing both the target states for the EP and EU heavyweights have said they will not attend the initial EP summit. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have confirmed that they will send lower-ranking diplomats to the summit in their stead. Lukashenko's absence is particularly notable (Voronin's is less so after violent protests against the leader plagued the government in recent weeks), as it was widely hoped within the European Union that Belarus would use the summit to open up to the West and enable meaningful reforms to increase cooperation with the bloc — something that would be considered quite a success, considering Minsk's subservient relationship with Moscow. The Belarusian leader, however, has sent a strong message to the contrary by withdrawing his attendance. There are many complications involving the leaders of the former Soviet states who are slated to attend — complications that will serve as obstacles to the EP's effectiveness. Ukraine's Yushchenko is expected to attend, but his country's government is at odds with itself and he has a single-digit approval rating heading into the country's elections, which were moved forward to October and will almost assuredly attract a greater deal of Russian influence. The Caucasus is completely in flux at the moment, with daily protests and an alleged attempted coup in Georgia and a possible normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia that has actually caused Yerevan and its historic enemy Azerbaijan to fall even further under Moscow's influence. So while the EP is a symbolic gesture made by the European Union to the six former Soviet states on its periphery, those states are questioning the initiative's ability to produce results. Considering the European Union's own apparent lack of cohesion on the initiative and the fact that the target countries are not exactly eager to take part in a new and controversial club, they are not likely to expect much. Conversely, the Russians have spent the past year reminding their former republics who yields true influence in this region in very concrete ways.