The article looks at EU membership candidacy as a primary toolkit for the Union’s relation with the neighboring countries. The comparative analysis stresses important differences in the patterns of conditionality that the EU applies to Ukraine and countries of the Western Balkans. Despite that, as well as the history of candidacy status, the pattern of compliance with the conditionality is rather similar in both cases. Moreover, in terms of democratization, the internal political situation in Ukraine is even more dynamic, due to the existential external challenges of the Russian aggression and the internal consequences of this aggression.