E.U. Grapples With Disappointment Over Ukraine

Ms. Merkel, holding a glass of white wine, stood in front of Mr. Yanukovich, a beefy man who is at least a head taller. “We see you here,” Ms. Merkel, said, nodding her head and giving a disapproving shrug. “But we expected more.” Next to her, Ms. Grybauskaite nodded in assent. Mr. Yanukovich had nowhere to turn.

The scene, captured on a video released by Ms. Grybauskaite’s office, summed up the European Union’s Eastern Partnership conference here — an event that officials had hoped would mark a giant westward step by Ukraine toward European integration.

Instead, leaders had to settle for preliminary agreements with Moldova and Georgia, and were left grappling with how best to deal with a challenge from Russia, which pressured Ukraine to drop the accords.

Mr. Yanukovich, who has called for new negotiations with Russia and the European Union, had little to say. “The economic situation in Ukraine is very hard,” he is heard saying on the video. “And we have big difficulties with Moscow.”

Ukraine, a nation of 46 million people that borders four European Union states – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania – faces an increasingly grave economic crisis and is in desperate need of a financial aid package.

Officials here said that Mr. Yanukovich had reiterated his request for assistance in a meeting on Thursday with the European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and the European Council president, Herman Van Rompuy and asked them for help in persuading the International Monetary Fund to soften the terms of a large loan deal that has been under negotiation for months.

The request suggested that Mr. Yanukovich had received no guarantee of economic aid from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, despite several face-to-face meetings in recent weeks. The Kremlin had maneuvered forcefully to block Ukraine from signing the accords, and its success in doing so was the latest in a string of recent foreign policy victories for Russia.

Some European leaders are calling for additional aid to Ukraine in hopes of cajoling Mr. Yanukovich into signing the agreements next year, but it was not clear that the I.M.F. would be willing to ease its requirements, which include a number of painful austerity steps, such as increasing public utility rates

. While officials expressed excitement over the steady progress of Moldova and Georgia, and their initialing of preliminary agreements that keep them on track toward European integration, the disappointment over Ukraine was palpable. There was less visible regret over a similar decision by Armenia in September, also made under pressure from Russia, to give up its plans for signing agreements with Europe.

“With Ukraine, look, we are very, very clear that we want to have a strong relationship with Ukraine,” Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said, with a note of exasperation in her voice, as she arrived for talks at the summit meeting on Friday morning.

“We believe that, particularly on economic issues, there is much to be done together to the benefit of the people of Ukraine and to the benefit of the European Union – and to do that in a way that is complementary to any other relationship they would wish to have,” Ms. Ashton said. “We absolutely appreciate that.” She added, “The European Union’s door is open.”

The initialing of preliminary agreements with Georgia and Moldova brings those countries to a point that Ukraine reached in March 2012, raising the possibility of further efforts by Russia to prevent the accords from ultimately being signed.

Moldova had already come under substantial pressure from Moscow, including a ban on Moldovan wine, one of the country’s most important exports, and threats of an immigration crackdown that could expel more than 100,000 Moldovan citizens living and working in Russia.