Russia May Focus on Pro-U.S. Ukraine after Georgia.

Now that Russia has humiliated Georgia with a punishing military offensive, it may shift its attention to reining in pro-Western Ukraine, another American ally in the former Soviet Union.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's first order of business likely will be to try to thwart Ukraine's bid to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The military operation in Georgia will serve "as a warning" to Ukraine that it should desist from petitioning for NATO entry, said Janusz Bugajski, director of the New European Democracies Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Otherwise, Moscow may intervene to protect the allegedly threatened interests of the Russian population."

Read the article