Re: forty years ago...
How are you wrong, let me count the ways.
The Berlin wall was demolished 25 years ago. 40 years ago the Ukraine was part of a country known as the USSR, colloquially Russia. There was no way to detach the Ukraine for the USSR short of war, until the collapse of the USSR. Even then the Ukraine was not a beacon of western liberal democracy,
"Winning" the cold war allowed Poland, Hungary, etc (established countries in their own right) to be brought into the western orbit but not the Ukraine and other "republics" in the USSR. The mistake the EU made was to try to detach the Ukraine from a resurgent Russia. It was never going to happen and the EU, bless it, did not have, and has not, the economic, military and soft power to take on Russia. (Who has heard of "EUpop".)
Greece joined the EU in 1981 after it had returned to civilian government. Just after WW2 the UK was fighting with the Greeks to prevent a communist take over. Greece joined NATO in 1952.
I've not a lot of time for the self perpetuating, self aggrandising EU "state" but am very glad it has not got the gonads to take on Russia because it has no power to back up any threats, particularly given the parlous state of the Euro and the dire position of the southern EU members.