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BRUSSELS — Seven months after Ukraine’s former president Viktor F. Yanukovych rejected a sweeping trade deal with the European Union and set off protests that drove him from power, Ukraine’s new leader on Friday accepted the pact, which Russia has bitterly opposed as a threat to its own economic and strategic interests in the former Soviet Union.
BRUSSELS — Dealing a defiant blow to the Kremlin, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a long-delayed trade pact with Europe on Friday that Moscow had bitterly opposed. He then declared he would like his country to one day become a full member of the European Union.
The news agency Interfax in Moscow quoted Russia’s deputy foreign minister as warning that “serious consequences” would follow the signing of a deal that Moscow has long worked to derail.
In so doing, Ukraine’s new leader, a billionaire confectionary magnate, has in effect doubled down on a risky bet on the West that has cost his country hundreds of lives, the loss of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and triggered a low-level civil war in its eastern border region.
The signing followed months of upheaval in Ukraine that split the country and set off an armed, separatist rebellion in the east that has yet to be resolved. While a moment of triumph for the European Union, it represented a setback of sorts for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who considered Ukraine an integral part of Russia and was determined not to let it slide into the West’s orbit.
By signing the trade pact at the Brussels headquarters of the European Union, Mr. Poroshenko revived a deal whose rejection last November by his predecessor, Viktor F. Yanukovych, set off months of pro-European protests in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, and pushed the West into its biggest test of wills with Russia since the end of the Cold War.
With Georgia and Moldova signing similar agreements, Mr. Putin was facing the prospect of three former Soviet republics’ slipping out of Russia’s sphere of interest. He was able to reclaim southern Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, with its strategic naval base and considerable energy resources, but at the cost of provoking economic sanctions and capital flight that has dragged down Russia’s economy.
The unrest toppled Mr. Yanukovych and drove pro-Russian activists in Crimea and also the eastern region of Donetsk to demand annexation by Russia.
Mr. Putin retains enormous influence in Ukraine, where the new president, Petro O. Poroshenko, and Western leaders accuse Mr. Putin of organizing and arming separatist rebels who control significant sections of the country’s east. The United States and Europe have swept aside Russian denials of a hand in the violence and have repeatedly called on Mr. Putin to halt the traffic — something he is unlikely to do if Russia wants to display its displeasure over the trade pact with Brussels.
“This is a really historic date for Ukraine,” Mr. Poroshenko, who won Ukraine’s presidential elections in May to fill a post left vacant when Mr. Yanukovych fled to Russia in February, told a news conference in Brussels.
Despite threats this week from Secretary of State John Kerry of new and tougher sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, European Union leaders announced within hours of signing the economic accord that they would not support such a step. Europe, like the United States, has limited its sanctions to an asset freeze and travel ban against a narrow group of Russian political and military figures involved in the March annexation of Crimea.
In a dig at Mr. Yanukovych, he said he had signed the agreement with the same pen that his toppled predecessor would have used to sign the same pact, before he changed his mind under pressure from Moscow and set up his own downfall.
But the pact noted that preparatory work was underway for additional sanctions and set out conditions, including the return of Ukrainian border posts seized by pro-Russian fighters, that it said should be met by Monday.
The conclusion of the so-called Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine marked a severe setback for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his oft-repeated goal of reasserting Russian influence in the “near abroad,” Moscow’s term for the territories of the former Soviet Union.
With many countries strongly opposed to sanctions that would damage their own economic interests in Russia, European leaders have been divided on how hard to push Russia over Ukraine. The leaders said they were ready to “reconvene at any time” to consider further sanctions.
“The big loser in all this is Putin,” said Amanda Paul, a researcher at the European Policy Centre, a Brussels research group. “He has gone out of his way to create problems internally in Ukraine but only pushed Ukraine further into the arms of the West than it ever would have gone before. It totally backfired for Putin.”
The European officials also expressed support for a peace plan for eastern Ukraine put forward this week by Mr. Poroshenko, and suggested that blame for frequent violations of a cease-fire announced on Tuesday and almost certain to be extended on Friday lay not with Ukraine but with pro-Russian militants and Russian connivance.
Moldova and Georgia, two other former Soviet lands that Moscow had pressured not to stray too far from its orbit, also signed agreements with the European Union on Friday. In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, citizens celebrated with a large public concert, which was broadcast on all major domestic television channels.
Mr. Poroshenko, a confectionary mogul who won Ukraine’s presidential elections in May to fill a post left vacant when Mr. Yanukovych fled the country in February, signed the so-called Association Agreement at the Brussels headquarters of the European Union on the sidelines of a summit meeting of leaders of the bloc’s 28 countries.
There was jubilation as well in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, after the signing of the agreement. By late afternoon on Friday, several hundred people had gathered in Independence Square, the focal point of months of street protests, many carrying blue balloons with yellow paper stars affixed to them — replicating the European Union flag — and released them into the air.
“This is a really historic date for Ukraine,” President Poroshenko told a news conference in Brussels. In a dig at Mr. Yanukovych, Mr. Poroshenko said he signed the agreement in Brussels with the same pen that his ousted predecessor was supposed to use to sign the same pact — before he changed his mind and set up his own downfall.
After weeks of statements by Mr. Poroshenko vowing to seal the agreement, the Kremlin was well-prepared and immediately began to lay the groundwork for retaliatory measures, including the withdrawal of preferential treatment for Ukrainian exports to Russia under prior agreements between former Soviet republics.
He also voiced hopes that Ukraine might one day join the European Union, an option that is not on the table at the moment, and hailed the trade pact as a new beginning for all Ukrainians, including Russian-speakers in the east.
Within minutes of the signing ceremony, the news agency Interfax quoted Russia’s deputy foreign minister as warning that “serious consequences” would follow. The remark was an ominous sign of the vexation caused in Moscow by the tilt toward Europe of lands that Russia, first under czarist and then Soviet leaders, for centuries considered its own.
“The signature of this agreement signifies new investment, new rules without corruption and new markets, the biggest market in the world,” Mr. Poroshenko told reporters, adding that he did not expect Ukraine to lose access to Russia or any other markets.
In Moscow, Mr. Putin blamed the months of crisis in Ukraine on Western leaders, saying they had forced Kiev to choose between Russia and the European Union.
The accord with the European Union fulfills an election promise by Mr. Poroshenko to move Ukraine closer to Europe, reversing a course set by Mr. Yanukovych before his ouster. But it could complicate another pledge he made to curb violence by separatists who have seized government buildings in a number of cities in eastern Ukraine where residents feel a close affinity to neighboring Russia.
“The acute crisis in this neighboring country seriously troubles us,” Mr. Putin said after a ceremony to receive the credentials of foreign diplomats. “The anti-constitutional coup in Kiev and attempts to artificially impose a choice between Europe and Russia on the Ukrainian people have pushed society toward a split and painful confrontation.”
The signing of the accord represented a huge, symbolic political victory, and was greeted in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, as a triumph for the thousands of demonstrators who camped out for months in Independence Square, ultimately driving Mr. Yanukovych to flee to Russia. Europe’s call, however, for integrating Ukraine politically and economically into the West seems as distant as ever given the violence still plaguing the east of the country.
Though spurned, Moscow retains enormous influence in Ukraine. It reminded Kiev of this earlier this month by suspending deliveries of natural gas following a long-running dispute over price. Russia has denied any hand in the violence in eastern Ukraine but has been accused by the West of supporting pro-Russians rebels with guns, money and manpower from across the border in Russia.
On Friday, Mr. Putin blamed the months of crisis in Ukraine on Western leaders, saying they had forced Kiev to choose between Russia and the European Union.
Given the ferocity of the Kremlin’s campaign to prevent completion of the accord between Ukraine and Europe, the reaction by senior officials on Friday was relatively muted, reflecting not only acceptance of the inevitability of Mr. Poroshenko’s signing but also the changed circumstances following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where it has a strategically important naval base.
“The acute crisis in this neighboring country seriously troubles us,” Mr. Putin said after a ceremony to receive the credentials of foreign diplomats newly arrived in Moscow. “The anti-constitutional coup in Kiev and attempts to artificially impose a choice between Europe and Russia on the Ukrainian people have pushed society toward a split and painful confrontation.”
“In the Kremlin, they are calming down and trying to assess the results of this frenzied state of affairs over the last couple of months,” said Konstantin Sonin, vice rector of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “I think we make too much rationalization of what the Kremlin does. I think they were very much driven by events.”
Mr. Putin’s invasion and annexation of Crimea after the Mr. Yanukovych’s ouster drew worldwide condemnation, and his close associates have become the target of Western sanctions because of Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. But Mr. Putin insisted that Russia was doing its best to support peace talks and on Friday he called for a long-term truce to replace a temporary cease-fire that is supposed to expire on Friday night.
One of Mr. Putin’s major objections to closer political and economic relations between Ukraine and the West was widely understood to be a concern about NATO expansion, and the risk that would pose to Russia’s military interests in the Crimean peninsula.
The European Union also, as expected, sealed similar trade pacts with Georgia and Moldova, two other former Soviet republics that Moscow had been eager to keep within its own orbit. As with Ukraine, the big question now is how Moscow will respond to Europe’s renewed push to draw former Soviet territories into its own sphere of influence.
Russia has long viewed the European Union as a stalking horse for NATO but, in a move that could help allay such concerns, NATO foreign ministers decided in Brussels earlier this week that an alliance summit in September will not approve offering Georgia a formal step to membership.
Shortly before the signing of the accord on Friday, Sergei Y. Glazyev, a senior adviser to Mr. Putin, accused European leaders of forcing Ukraine to sign.
There is no chance of the European Union admitting Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova as members any time soon. Public opinion in Europe is hostile to any further expansion of a 28-nation bloc that is already widely seen as too big and too unwieldy.
“Europe is trying to push Ukraine to sign this agreement by force,” Mr. Glazyev said in an interview with the BBC. Mr. Glazyev directed an aggressive effort last year by the Kremlin to block Ukraine from signing the deal, which included temporarily blocking Ukrainian goods at the Russian border and other punitive measures.
All the same, Europe’s allure to so many people in former Soviet territories has infuriated Moscow, not the least because it contrasts so starkly with the cool reception given Mr. Putin’s efforts to form a rival economic bloc, the Eurasian Union, which is due to start up next year. It so far has only three takers, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
In the BBC interview, Mr. Glazyev called the Ukrainian government “Nazis” and replied “of course” when asked if Mr. Poroshenko, too, was a Nazi. Those statements prompted an unusual disavowal by Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, who told Russian news agencies that Mr. Glazyev’s comments were “not the official position” of the Kremlin.
Far from concluding a period of tumult, the completion of the trade deal, which still needs approval from the Ukrainian Parliament, could further stoke tensions both inside Ukraine and between Moscow and the West.
Ukraine signed the political clauses of the Association Agreement in March but the signing on Friday of its more important and much lengthier economic and trade sections completed a process that the European Union had expected to finish last November, when Mr. Yanukovych abruptly walked away from a deal and triggered months of antigovernment demonstrations in Kiev.
Senior Russian officials quickly began warning that Russia’s businesses and economy could suffer, as their markets could be flooded with low-cost goods from Europe that skirt tariffs by first being shipped through Ukraine, which will be exempt from most European duties. Other experts have dismissed those concerns, saying Russia is quite adept at identifying and intercepting such goods as they cross the border.
The deal offers Ukraine no prospect of actually joining the European Union, membership of which has often gone hand-in-hand with entry to NATO, but Russia nonetheless sees it as a serious threat to its own historically close ties to Ukraine, a fellow Slavic nation that was for centuries part of the Russian empire of the czars and then of the Soviet Union.
European leaders, meeting Friday at a summit in Brussels dominated by wrangling over who should lead its executive arm for the next five years, announced that they would not immediately impose additional sanctions on Russia for its interference in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But, they said in a statement that additional sanctions were being prepared and could be deployed “without delay” if Russia does not do more to curb violence in eastern Ukraine.
While Ukraine is the biggest of the three countries to associate with the European Union on Friday and has a far bigger economy with broader implications for trade relations throughout the region, Russia had also voiced strong objections to the signing of the accord by Moldova.
Europe, like the United States, has so far limited its sanctions to an asset freeze and travel ban against a narrow group of Russian political and military figures involved in the March annexation of Crimea.
Moldova, the poorest country on the European continent, was undeterred by the pressure from Moscow, including punitive steps such as a ban on Moldovan wine, one of the country’s main exports. Russia had also threatened potential repercussions for tens of thousands of Moldovan migrant workers living in Russia, though recently the Kremlin has said there will be no immigration crackdown. Russia also exerts influence in Moldova through its support of Transnistria, a breakaway region along the Ukrainian border, where Russia maintains a force of about 1,000 peacekeeping troops.
European leaders set a deadline of next Monday for pro-Russian militants to leave borders posts seized from Ukrainian personnel, to release all hostages, agree to procedures for the verification of a cease-fire and accept “substantial negotiations” on a peace plan proposed by Mr. Poroshenko.
Georgia, which fought a brief war with Russia in 2008, had previously withdrawn from a trade agreement among former Soviet republics and, unlike Ukraine and Moldova, had never been viewed as a potential member of the Eurasian economic union that Russia formed initially with Belarus and Kazakhstan.
They did not explain what they would do if this does not happen, saying only that they will “assess the situation and, should it be required, adopt necessary decisions.”
In a speech at the signing ceremony, the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Garibashvili, described the accord with Europe as a road map for his country’s future toward eventual membership in the European Union, a step that is still seen as far in the future.
In eastern Ukraine, in the embattled regional capital of Donetsk, Aleksandr Borodai, a rebel leader from Russia, told reporters that pro-Russian militias were willing to extend a truce until June 30, provided that the Ukrainian government did the same. The Ukrainian government was expected to agree to the extension.
“The Association Agreement is the master plan for the European integration of Georgia,” Mr. Garibashvili said. “By gradual legislative harmonization with the European Union, Georgia will achieve political association and economic integration with the Union and firmly anchor the country to the European institutions.”
In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, citizens celebrated with a large public concert, which was also broadcast on all major domestic television channels.
“I think today we finally have taken the path to our home,” said Malkhaz Chkadua, 29, who watched the ceremony on television. “Maybe I personally will not live up to the day when Georgia is fully accepted to the European family. But this is the goal that we all now live for.”
Last September, Armenia, under pressure from the Kremlin, abruptly dropped its own plans to sign agreements with the European Union and announced that it would join the Russian-backed customs union instead. Armenia is heavily reliant on Russia for security and economic aid.
