Among various geopolitical repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic are redefinitions of the short-term priorities of many international organizations. Among others, the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are becoming absorbed by new internal challenges, and are thus even less interested in further enlargement than before. Against this background, Kyiv, Tbilisi, and Chisinau, as well as their Western friends, need to seek new paths to increase the three countries’ security, resilience, and growth before their accession to the West’s major organizations. Above all, an alternative way to decrease Ukraine’s current institutional isolation is to develop more intense bilateral relations with friendly states across the globe, including Germany and the United States. In Eastern Europe, moreover, Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova should attempt to create new multilateral networks with post-communist member countries of NATO as well as the EU, and try to become part of such structures as the Three Seas Initiative or Bucharest Nine group.
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