Indeed, the disintegration of the Soviet internal empire is likely to be one of the most important factors affecting the future of Europe in the 1990s. it is highly questionable whether the Soviet Union will remain an integral multinational state. As centrifugal pressures increase, some of the republics, such as the Russian Federation and the Ukraina, are likely to seek greater autonomy even independence and may begin to pursue their own “European” policies, especially in the economic area. The growing political fragmentation of the USSR could be a major source of instability in Europe and make the integration of the Soviet Union or major remnants of it into a broader European framework more difficult.