(CNN) -- Europe's Eastern policy, if there ever really was one, is in tatters. It has unraveled at breakneck speed, as Russia moved against Ukraine, effectively annexed part of its territory, and put its smaller neighbor on the brink of war. Moving from disbelief to dismay to horror, Europeans lost whatever hopes and illusions they may have harbored that Russia was a predictable and cooperative partner. Instead, images are being invoked of the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 and in Hungary in 1956, and a new Cold War seems fully possible now. However far-fetched they may seem, these comparisons reflect a frantic search among Western politicians and experts for the underlying causes, rationales and consequences of Russia's actions in Ukraine. And it slowly dawns on Europe that it is witness to a sea change in Russian foreign policy that shakes the very foundations of the European order that emerged after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
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Changing Russian foreign policy is shaking the European order, says Joerg Forbrig
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He says Moscow seems resolved to interfere with any of its post-Soviet neighbors
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Russia's interventionist strategy has been in the making for a decade, Forbrig says
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Moscow's quest has become an ideological mission to fight the West, he says
It should hardly surprising, then, that @placeholder responses to Russia's increasingly aggressive behavior have been muffled at best.