Search

Despite the Lisbon Treaty's modifications in the foreign and security policy domain, the EU has frequently relied on third parties to address external conflicts and crises. Using the Ukrainian conflict as a case study, this article adopts the orchestration model to explain why and how the EU enlists intermediary actors over which it has no formal control to pursue its objectives. It finds that in this conflict the EU outsourced part of its crisis management activities to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe because it lacked the civilian and military capabilities, as well as the regulatory competence and reputation to challenge Russia. Indeed, the Ukrainian case shows that orchestration has emerged as a crucial governance arrangement for the functioning of EU crisis management, raising serious questions about the EU overall capacity to act as a security provider in an international system marred by contestation and hard security concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2015, the OSCE will commemorate two seminal dates: the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act and the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Paris for a new Europe. This study takes these seminal dates for the OSCE as well as the current dramatic Ukrainian crisis as starting points to analyze three questions: How has Russia's relationship and role with/within the OSCE evolved throughout the years? Which role has the OSCE been playing in European security governance? How does the Ukrainian crisis affect Russia's OSCE policy and what does it mean for the OSCE? Studying Russia's OSCE policy is key to understand the OSCE's role as a framework for security governance in Europe with both its successes and failures. In order to answer these research questions, this study uses insights from (regional) security governance literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece examines practices of the European Union (EU) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in dealing with secessionist entities in the post-Soviet space. The study specifically looks at the engagement of the two organizations with Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine and contested territories that seek secession from these ‘parent states’: South Ossetia, Transnistria and the Donbas region. Drawing on the organizations’ documents and a series of expert interviews with their representatives, the analysis uncovers the actual engagements of EU and OSCE field presences in the three countries, conceptualizes the organizations’ practices in approaching secessionist entities and provides possible explanations for the variance in the use of these practices. In doing so, the study contributes to the scholarly debate on international conflict management and state (non-)recognition in international politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the OSCE, contemporary threats to security are more likely to arise from causes other than armed conflicts. The OSCE considers the list of potential security threats open and able to intersect the military, economic, and "human sphere." Yet, how open is this list and how open should it be? This paper tackles this question by examining the issue of whether discrimination and intolerance against LGBTQ populations can be considered a security threat that pertains to the human dimension of security. The current conflict in Ukraine illustrates the dangers of an expansive approach to framing security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anthology describes the ongoing decentralization reform in Ukraine involved with the conflict "in and around Ukraine" (as described by OSCE). It is recommended to those who what to know what the decentralization reform in Ukraine is about, as well as to those who want to go deeper into problems and risks of decentralization in general. The case of Ukraine: edited by Hanna Shelest and Maryna Rabinovych, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan Federalism and Internal Conflicts series, 2020, 373 pp., €131.99 (hardback), ISBN 978-3-030-41764-2; €96.29 (eBook), ISBN 9778-3-030-41765-9. [Extracted from the article]

This paper examines four of Europe's more marginal military institutions that receive less attention: the Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF); the French led European Intervention Initiative (EI2); the British led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF); and the Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian joint brigade (LITPOLUKRBRIG). These are described here as "interstitial" because they exist in the niches between both the main multilateral security forums (NATO, EU, UN, OSCE) and the national level. They are intermediaries, working like bridges to cover political obstacles, while often borrowing resources from established actors (notably NATO). It is argued here that such institutions are a form of national hedging against institutional blockages within NATO/EU while providing a platform for national defence policy entrepreneurship. In the context of Cold War 2.0 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, such institutional practices should not be dismissed as marginal. They offer a means to deploy European military forces outside formal NATO or EU decision-making structures, a feature which confers a useful flexibility. (161) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since independence and up until now Ukraine has tried to shape its security priorities and to define and implement key policies into its main security-related documents: laws, strategies, and defense policy ("military doctrine"). Ukraine also invested its hopes into the development of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), planned to enhance its participation in the activities of North Atlantic Co-operation Council (NACC), and the North Atlantic Assembly (NAA), expecting that the activities of these institutions would contribute to shaping the new architecture of pan-European security and assuming that belonging to the latter would be crucial for Ukraine's national security. First, in 2010 the pro-presidential majority in the Parliament of Ukraine passed the Law No 2411-VI "On the Basics of Internal and External Policy."[12] The document stated that Ukraine, as a European country that did not belong to any military block, had an open foreign policy, and sought co-operation with any interested partners, whilst avoiding dependence on any country, groups of counties, or international organisations. Ukraine was the first non-allied country to contribute military capabilities to the NATO Response Force.[26]Under OSCE umbrella Ukraine has taken part in OSCE missions in Kosovo, Georgia, Macedonia, and Kyrgyzstan. [Extracted from the article]

The resilience approach has recently emerged as a new topic of EU foreign policy debates and research. This paper adopts a complexity theory perspective to analyze the operationalization of the resilience approach in the EU response to crisis in Ukraine during 2014–2021. Building upon this theory, this paper distinguishes between resilience-as-quality of a complex system and resilience-as-thinking about a complex system. The empirical analysis focuses on the complexity features of non-linearity and self-organizing localization of EU interventions undertaken in the framework of the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP). It concludes that the emerging system of intervention displays some complexity qualities, yet the EU crisis response follows the linear and top-down logic embedded in the project-based practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding why the Minsk process failed is essential both for explaining why Russia invaded in 2022 and for ensuring that a new peace settlement does not prove similarly ineffective. Many analyses point to the conflicting goals of the combatants as the basic obstacle to peace. However, rationalist approaches show that some peace agreement should always be preferable to war. The commitment problem represents an obstacle to peace in Ukraine that is distinct from the territorial questions at the center of the war. The failure of Minsk reflects the actors' inability to credibly commit to fulfilling their promises. Third-party guarantees are essential to solving the conflict, but external guarantees have their own credibility problems. Therefore, further conflict was the only route to a settlement. Unless better solutions for the commitment problem can be found, a peace deal will rely either on one side being defeated or the two sides fighting to exhaustion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU as an actor in international affairs does so far have only limited experience in conflict management. Nevertheless, it has formulated the goal of playing the role of a 'comprehensive' conflict manager already in 2013. In the post-Soviet region, the Union until recently hardly lived up to that ambition and has mostly restricted itself to a technical profile. This article asks for the EU's contribution to conflict management in Ukraine since 2014 and for its respective development as a foreign policy actor. It finds that the Union in Ukraine largely remains wedded to the 'partial-indirect' type of conflict manager but that it has also demonstrated some progress towards a more political and less technocratic profile. In the Ukraine conflict, the EU has shown remarkable pragmatism, a willingness to invest resources on an unprecedented level, and the ability to securitize its policies in substance. It can be argued that the EU, based on its comprehensive support to state building projects in Ukraine, is on the way towards the establishment of a 'state building–security nexus' in the ENP framework. Yet, there exists a dangerous gap between the level of investment on the one hand and the low political profile of the institutions and the lack of strategy on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to an article on Ukraine crisis is presented.

The phenomenon of Italian foreign fighters who currently fight in the Russia-Ukraine conflict presents elements of high ideological complexity. The presence of different groups of highly ideologized far-right fighters fighting on opposite sides of the front emerges. Foreign fighters of the extreme right shoot each other at the front and some of them have as comrades foreign fighters of the extreme left. The main sources of this research are texts published in social media by foreign fighters and have been collected through online ethnography. The analysis of the collected texts is conducted with a qualitative thematic analysis with an inductive method. Particular attention has been paid to the phenomenon of Red-Brownism also called 'Brown-Red cocktail' that in the context of the Ukrainian conflict seems to cast doubt on whether the extreme right and the extreme left should always be considered opposing extremisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ukraine conflict has been pushed into a new phase by elections in separatist-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk. In spite of attempts to achieve a ceasefire, a renewal of hostilities is possible at any point in the coming months. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay uses the concept of security governance to explore the implications of Russia’s intervention in Ukraine for the rules-based security order in Europe. It outlines key ideas in the literature about the post-Cold War European security order with respect to Russia’s role and examines Russian debates on the Ukraine conflict. It then investigates European institutions’ reaction to the conflict in order to understand to what extent Russia’s exclusion (as a result of the West’s policy of containment and deterrence) or self-exclusion now constitutes a structural factor in the security politics of the wider Europe. The essay concludes with the analysis of the challenges facing both Europe and Russia and considers the prospects for re-shaping this order to give meaning to partnership and shared security governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the lens of liminality to explore the consequences and wider implications of the war in Ukraine for those states "in-between," with a specific focus on Georgia and Moldova and their relations with the EU. It examines the different approaches that these two states have adopted in response to their spatial and temporal liminal condition: Georgia has focused on the discursive construction of a new identity, while Moldova has tended to focus on the process of becoming European, on the institutional elements of integration with the EU. War is also a liminal condition, an uncertain and transformative period; thus, the war in Ukraine adds a further layer of liminality to the EU's eastern neighborhood, intensifying the ambiguity and contestation that can occur as Georgia and Moldova pursue recognition and acceptance of their European identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic literature offers different views on the strength of Ukraine's civil society, but Ukraine's massive civic engagement and collective action, most recently in defense against Russian aggression, offers a startling picture of grass-root activism. Based on interviews, surveys and archival research, we highlight changes and nuances to Ukrainian civil society, civic engagement and motivations over time, from Euromaidan, through the hybrid Russian aggression in the East, to the recent full-scale Russian invasion. In doing so, we explore a more inclusive understanding of civil society complemented by sense of community and community responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war in Ukraine has threatened our idea of peace and democracy. The European Union has been caught unprepared and, to show its opposition to Russia, has developed strict economic sanctions. A path to a possible candidacy of Ukraine to the EU is now open. However, the enlargement process has been silenced for a while and still, there are critiques due to 'nasty' member states that do not comply with the rule of law. Information online does not help in understanding the accession iter and the current situation. On the list of potential members, at pole position, we find the Western Balkans, which have been long pushed to join the EU and have already developed a huge network of international and European organizations. I will run a Social Network Analysis to outline the position of possible new member countries in the Eurozone according to the media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing peace, security, and stability to the war-torn region of Donbas has proven to be a challenging – some would say near-impossible – task. The "Minsk II" agreement, signed in February 2015, was supposed to put an end to the armed hostilities, resolve the underlying political issues, and gradually restore Ukrainian government control of the country's eastern border. None of this has happened. Despite continuous Western support and pressure, progress in the implementation of the peace plan signed in Minsk has been slow, also after the much-anticipated Paris summit of the "Normandy Four" (Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France) in December 2019. This article discusses the underlying causes of the current stalemate, emphasizing factors such as the inherently complex nature of the conflict, the process through which "Minsk II" came into being, the vague and ambiguous language of this and other agreements, practical challenges related to the timing and sequencing of agreed-upon measures, and Russia's persistent non-acknowledgement of its role in the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clashes of interests in the Russia–Ukraine–EU triangle … The Customs Union … Missile defense in Europe … What is Ukraine's stance on these contentious issues? What are the prospects for cooperation between Russia and Ukraine in key areas of European security, especially given that Ukraine will take over the rotating chairmanship of the OSCE in 2013? And what are the prospects for trade and economic relations between the two countries? We have put our questions to the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, Volodymyr Yelchenko. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How are foreign policies developed during times of conflict? This question is often approached by scholars. Here I focus on individual policymakers' decisions and employ a novel game-theory-inspired analytical framework in foreign policy analysis. The article studies Ukrainian leaders' decision-making in relations with Russia and the European Union in the first turbulent months of the war in Donbas (April–August 2014). Understanding the beginning of this war holds high relevance in light of the current full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. This research is based on analysis of 38 interviews with EU, Ukrainian, and Russian policymakers, and analysis of documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media can cause concern in the context of national security: they are described as potential tools and targets of attack that can be "weaponised", and as a space where "information war" is waged. Governments may try to block media that are deemed a security threat, but the rationale for taking such an action deserves careful consideration, given the tension between media restrictions and the democratic principle of free speech. This article scrutinises the security rationale for restrictions imposed by Ukraine on Russian and "pro-Russian" media from 2014. When justifying restrictions, Ukrainian officials highlighted the threat of media content both distorting perceptions of reality and weakening the foundations of Ukrainian nationhood. We, therefore, analyse survey data to investigate whether the use of the banned media was associated with variation in Ukrainian citizens' perceptions of truth and national values. We find that the use of the banned media was linked to mistaken beliefs about the veracity of news headlines, both true and false; it was also associated with lower support for democracy in Ukraine (a key national constitutional value). This evidence from the Ukrainian case informs our discussion about the media's impact on national (in)security and rationales for media restrictions in democratic contexts more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transnistria, an unrecognized state within the borders of the Republic of Moldova, has been in a precarious situation following the Ukrainian crisis, characterized by the annexation of Crimea by the Russia Federation and the internal conflict in eastern Ukraine. This has resulted in Ukraine and Moldova adopting stringent policies against Transnistria, thereby intensifying its already challenging situation. The main concern derives from the fear that Russia might use Transnistria as a base for launching future "hybrid warfare" against Moldova and Ukraine. Thus, it can be said that the current challenging situation in Transnistria is linked to the overall Ukrainian crisis and is a consequence of security concerns shared by Ukraine and Moldova. In addition, the new situation after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine complicated conditions in Transnistria. Now, the Moldovan government has an opportunity to reintegrate Transnistria, independent of any issues related to the EU membership issue. On the other hand, Russia's basic policy toward Transnistria has not changed, although Transnistria has requested annexation by Russia many times, so the status quo seems to continue. This composition has continued in the former USSR space because Russia has been using unrecognized states to maintain its "sphere of interest." This situation can be explained by the "security dilemma" argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role did conventional arms control (CAC) agreements failures play in Russia's decision to invade Ukraine? Using a process tracing and counterfactual mixed methodology analyzing Russia's invasion motivations, this article attempts to answer the question by assessing Russian strategic policies, proposals, and arms control agreements. These demonstrate that Russia, seeing its sense of "indivisible security" being violated, sought to adjust or establish new CAC agreements to address a growing conventional military imbalance between NATO and Russia. Having failed to establish a fixed and stable conventional military balance through CAC, and as Ukraine edged closer to NATO membership, Russia resorted to the use of force shortly after their December 2021 proposals were not accepted. The article concludes by suggesting that this case supports arms racing and arms-control related causes of war theories, and that dissonant perceptions of the actual or ideal military balance can lead to conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using semi-structured interview methodology and qualitative 'thick description', original interviews were recorded with heritage experts who educate about and engage the public with Holocaust history in Belarus. Significantly, the interviews explored grassroots realities and gave voice to practitioners at risk of marginalization in Belarus's repressive cultural politics. Rigorously analyzing these research interviews within the context of regionally relevant academic literature and an online international workshop (2021), an original interpretation is offered. Namely, that Belarus has historically shifted from an opportune moment regarding Holocaust engagement and education to being 'at engagement's edge' following the August 2020 elections and Ukraine conflict (2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses upon alignment behaviour in the post-Soviet space and seeks to explain why balancing Russia by certain post-Soviet states, despite their numerous efforts to form alliances, has failed. Whereas this failure lies within the explanatory realm of the classical alignment theories, it is more puzzling why some of these post-Soviet states understood the limitations of balancing well and acted accordingly, while others failed to do so at detrimental costs. Trying to explain the failure of balancing Russia, the paper introduces a new theoretical concept that complements the existing alignment theories, and subsequently moves to explain the empirical puzzle of variations in post-Soviet states' assessment of alignment options. In doing so, the paper focuses upon three case studies, namely Georgia and Ukraine on the one hand, that increased their efforts to balance Russia in the last decade and ended up detrimentally, and Azerbaijan on the other hand that refrained from doing so. Unit level variables such as the elites' mis-perceptions/miscalculations of their alignment options as well as distribution of material capabilities, domestic politics and different strategic cultures are employed to explain the variation. The theoretical concept offered in the paper allows for an accurate understanding of alignment behavior in the post-Soviet space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2023, one of the buildings belonging to the National Historical Archives of Georgia caught fire, destroying many valuable cinematographic and audio materials from Soviet times. The authorities downplayed the incident, claiming that most of these materials had already been digitized, with copies kept in a separate building. But the incendiary event has fuelled accusations against the Georgian Dream party for having a careless attitude towards Georgia's historical legacy. Moreover, these accusations come at a time when the ruling party's authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies – increasingly difficult to explain away since the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine in 2022 – are felt with growing impact in various spheres of activity ranging from the political to the cultural. Yet, Georgia still ranks relatively high on the academic freedom index, and considerable scholarly exchange continues between Georgia and the rest of the world. Therefore, the question arises as to whether any authoritarian tendencies are detectable in the academic sphere and if Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine has had any measurable effect on the nature and conduct of higher education and research in Georgia. After providing the relevant historical background and context for current events, this piece argues that the creeping authoritarianism manifest today in the political, civic, media-information and arts-cultural spheres under Georgian Dream is also taking place in the academic sphere, albeit 'under the radar'. This subtle shift is part of a general regression – which intensified after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late-February 2022 – back to the dysfunctional patterns inherited from the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unique within the recent history of environmental hazards, eastern Ukraine illustrates the dangers arising from conflict in an urban landscape heavily modified by human action (including coal extraction and nuclear testing) and requiring active management. To analyze these dynamics and their implications, we examine industrialization in the Donbas region and warfare-accelerated environmental risks. Using primary data and ethnographic interviewing, we compare responses by state and international institutions tasked with monitoring and environmental redress in the context of larger mandates, noting widespread shortfall. This article contributes to emergent environment and warfare related literature by exploring how actors with divergent goals coalesce in downgrading environmental concerns, despite increasing risks, motivation to assist, and widening impact across country and continental divides. Significant for the study of small wars, a lack of international political will for 'forgotten conflicts' increases the likelihood of shared environmental risks being treated as simply another policy item to be negotiated. However, environmental disasters routinely cross international borders and pose long-lasting, compounding harm to direct, indirect, and even uninvolved parties. Furthermore, such dynamics may increasingly characterize warfare as urbanization and industrialization continue their global spread, with active war-time environmental management ushering in profound challenges and new areas of needed expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary investigates the linkages between international NGOs, donor agencies, and their development contractors as a framework for capitalist accumulation and neoliberal rationality in eastern Ukraine. With the onset of a hybrid war with Russia in 2014 - turned into a full-scale war eight years later - the government-controlled areas of the Donbas region have participated in multiple development programs. This commentary critically examines such development policies by focusing on the role of USAID in restructuring local economies and livelihoods. I focus on the USAID Economic Resilience Activity (ERA) to demonstrate that donor programs serve as mechanisms of capitalist accumulation (for development contractors) and neoliberal responsibilization (for conflict-affected citizens). The analysis points to uneven development and the (neo)liberal peace fallacy in Ukraine's Donbas. At the same time, it corroborates a wider trend in global political economy to obfuscate the interests of development capital with liberal discourses of vulnerability, resilience, and women's empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the measures implemented by countries in the field of access and administration of justice, focusing on the use of electronic justice as a comprehensive remote mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the experiences of the European Union and Ukraine to understand the effectiveness of electronic justice in ensuring the right of access to justice. Various scientific methods such as legal-statistical, systematic, formal-legal, and cybernetic methods were employed in the study. The analysis reveals that the measures taken by countries to prevent restrictions on human rights in the judicial system are not perfect and require further development. The study identifies key issues in the practical implementation of electronic justice and provides specific recommendations for improvement. The research fills a gap in comprehensive scientific studies on continuous and effective consideration of court cases during the pandemic. The practical and scientific value of the article lies in its relevance to practitioners and scholars worldwide, who are interested in the realization of the right of access to justice and the functioning of electronic justice. The national experiences and recommendations presented in the article can also be applied by European countries to enhance the effectiveness of their electronic justice systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines current challenges faced by Ukrainian legal system in matters of criminological and victimological security of society during quarantine measures related to COVID-19. Using methods of system analysis and scientific design, current legal framework of Ukraine in regulation of public relations was analyzed. The study draws attention to the fact that, Ukraine has improved its legislation on the control of medical purchases and the provision of necessary materials to medical institutions. At the same time, the authorities will have to further improve the framework for patient monitoring and the epidemiological surveillance system in the medical sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gray zone conflict that emerged after the Russian annexation of Crimea was an element of the Russian strategy of establishing and consolidating a new and more favourable internationally recognized maritime order in the Black Sea, Kerch Strait, and the Sea of Azov. Empirical data shows that Russian superiority over Ukraine and inferiority vis-a-vis the West shaped a double asymmetry of its tactics of projecting power against Ukraine while avoiding confrontation with the West. Eventually, Moscow reached a point where the gray zone tactics could not secure its objectives. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 signalled the exhausting coercive potential of a gray zone conflict. Although, despite of transition to conventional warfare, we found continuity of 'gray zone' tactics of double asymmetry and denying responsibility in the Russian playbook. Hence, a possible de-escalation of the Russia – Ukraine war may likely return to a gray zone conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interaction between Russia and Turkey since 2015 suggests a new quality in foreign affairs combining tactical alliance and strategic competition. The Russian invasion of Ukraine did not change this. By studying the cases of Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh, we observe not only elements of geopolitical competition and cooperation but also that the combination of the two contradictory approaches in foreign affairs created new opportunities beneficial to the two sides. Russian-Turkish interactions are a unique case study in international relations and are conditioned by their geopolitical competition with the west, a fact that the war in Ukraine did not alter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the war in Ukraine undoubtedly boosted Ukrainian national identification and prompted rapid alienation from Russia, another salient identity question prominent since Ukraine's independence has been the country's belonging to Europe, often challenged by the alternatives of Eurasian and Slavic supranational identities. This article explores different identity constructions in the Ukrainian national mass media and their interpretation of the war with Russia from the dawn of the conflict in 2014 to 2015. Respectively, the article maps immediate developments in the content and contestation of the European identity discourse as the crisis hits these identity constructions. This study found that the war has dramatically strengthened the influence of the identity construction that fully embraced Europeanness while increasingly muting its alternatives. In contrast, identity content was less prone to change; this significant decrease in contestation evidences the robust effect of 'big-bang' events in identity discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its implications for the study of international relations. It highlights the Eurocentric bias in the field and the lack of understanding of Eastern European experiences. The war has exposed divisions between offensive realists and pacifists, both of whom fail to recognize Ukraine's agency. However, it has also empowered Central and East European states to assert their political independence and challenge Russia's denial of Ukraine's sovereignty. The article explores Ukraine's historical experience as a passive player in international relations and the neglect of Russian imperialism in postcolonial studies. It argues that the war has revealed the difficulty of acknowledging Ukraine's distinct perspective and the need to address Russia's historical memory. The text also discusses Russia's imperialistic ambitions and the need for a comprehensive program to confront its repressive past. It calls for a decolonization of the study of war and international relations, emphasizing the importance of considering the perspectives and agency of smaller states. The author concludes by emphasizing the importance of empathy and understanding for those affected by the conflict. [Extracted from the article]

Debate on nuclear policy in Ukraine has primarily centered on regret over the disarmament decisions of the 1990s rather than a desire to acquire nuclear weapons. However, while acknowledging the deterrent value of nuclear arms, skepticism toward the possibility of developing an indigenous nuclear-weapons program has prevailed. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, and more prominently after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, this debate has been salient in Ukraine. Our analysis of Ukrainian public opinion and political-elite attitudes toward nuclear weapons reveals the coexistence of two perspectives. On the one hand, a significant proportion of Ukrainians view nuclear weapons as essential for safeguarding national independence and enhancing defense capabilities; thus there is widespread disappointment over Ukraine's decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons on its territory following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, most Ukrainians recognize that neither their defense industry nor their foreign policy is currently prepared to pursue a nuclear-weapons option. This has led Ukrainians to prioritize obtaining international security guarantees and pursuing integration into NATO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of why and when governments are caught out by strategic surprise has been a major occupation of intelligence studies, international relations, public administration and crisis management studies. Still little is known, however, about the structural vulnerabilities to such surprises in international organisations such as the European Union (EU). EU institutions themselves have not undertaken rigorous investigations or public inquiries of recent strategic surprises, instead relying on internal review processes. In order to understand the most common underlying problems causing surprise in the EU context, this paper adapts and tests insights from the strategic surprise literature. It elaborates a theoretical framework with five hypotheses about why the leadership of EU institutions has been prone to being caught by surprises in foreign affairs: limitations in collection capacity, institutional fragmentation of policymaking, organisational culture, member state politicisation, and cognitive biases arising from collective ideas and norms. These hypotheses are tested using a post-mortem approach investigating two significant strategic surprises: the start and spread of the Arab uprisings of 2010/11 and Ukraine–Russia crisis of 2013/14. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What sort of military assistance has Ukraine received to date from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members since 2014? What has driven NATO allies' decisions to provide military assistance to Ukraine? This essay addresses both questions. It offers a preliminary examination of how strategic, economic, and risk considerations might have shaped NATO members' decisions regarding arms transfers to Ukraine, a country that remains outside of the Alliance but nevertheless is an Enhanced Opportunities Partner. Using both a qualitative analysis of post-2014 assistance and a purpose-built dataset combining military aid to Ukraine since late January 2022, we find that prior strategic preparation in the form of investments in military readiness and infrastructure is strongly associated with military aid to Ukraine. Economic considerations and prominent risk factors such as fossil fuel dependency thus far have not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of the UN's System of National Accounts 2008 (SNA 2008), an unusual impact of wars on economic growth emerged. The SNA 2008 enables nations to include the depreciation of military hardware in their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculations. Economic growth can be furthered not only by making extensive military investments in force modernization but donations of weapons and ammunition can also be factored into a nation's national accounts. This research note presents how the SNA has affected the Czech Republic, a member of both the EU and NATO, which is a small-sized country that since 2022 has donated an extraordinary volume of second-hand hardware to Ukraine, which has contributed to the economic growth of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's decision to invade Ukraine in early 2022 was seemingly driven by an unprecedented willingness to accept risks for the Russian regime, state, and society. Developing a generalizable framework, this article analyzes the development of Russian risk acceptance in offensive war initiation. Drawing on policy documents, speeches, expert literature, and various interviews with Russian, Ukrainian, and Western policymakers, the article finds that risk acceptance has continuously risen since the mid-2000s, although the 2022 invasion still evinces some risk aversion. These results are robust when accounting for miscalculation and caution against attributing the 2022 invasion solely to short-term and leader-centric factors. They also provide cues for understanding the crisis behavior of Russia and other major powers, corroborate prospect theory models on cognitive biases in elite decision-making, and indicate the need to revise the theoretical assumption that risk acceptance is an empirically rare and drastic aberration from a risk-neutral or risk-averse normality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the early 1990s, Ukrainian Crimea seemed to face the Russian majority's separatist inclinations and far-reaching political claims of the formerly deported Crimean Tatars. Nevertheless, the peninsula's autonomous status secured ethnopolitical stability for about 19 years, and the article considers how the established regime of diversity governance contributed to the autonomy's endurance. The author concludes that this regime did not fit into an explanatory framework of inter-group balance, such as power-sharing. Among the factors securing durablity were the ambiguity of official narratives, loosely formalized participatory mechanisms encouraging opportunisic behavior and the maintenace of the elites' and population segments' expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a return to the "old" (imperial, colonial) wars aimed at seizing the neighboring state's territories and resources, and the violent assimilation of its population. Russia has changed its objective from gaining political leverage over Ukraine to enlarging its territorial control, based on the geostrategic and geo-economic value of the land. This is because Russia was no longer able to employ its soft power, with a gray-zone conflict effectively keeping Ukraine in its geopolitical orbit. Drawing on fieldwork, process tracing, and document analysis, we explain the de-modernization of the political regime and the economies of previously and newly occupied territories of Ukraine, by the export of Russian institutions and the employment of tactics of societal destabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine that is also a conflict between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies is fundamentally a result of two interconnected factors. The first is the threat to the security of Russia posed by the enlargement of NATO in violation of commitments made at the time of the reunification of Germany and of the principle of indivisible security. The second is deeply rooted internal divisions in Ukraine that were exacerbated by ethnic nationalism and the imposition of divisive national identity that led to demands for a degree of regional autonomy and a civil war that successive governments and external parties did not or did not want to resolve. In these years Ukraine served as an instrument in a US strategy to weaken a strategic rival, prevent Eurasian integration and preserve the unipolar order that had emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union. On present trends the losers will be Ukraine as it existed until February 2022, Europe and Germany although, depending on the outcome, it may also accelerate the transition to a new multipolar world order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia additionally tends to be more abrasive internationally than China.[8] Finally, whereas one of the two countries is ruled by a party inspired by Marxism-Leninism and Marx (whose new statue it erected in his home town of Trier in 2018), the other is led by someone whose heroes include Peter the Great, to whom Putin once compared himself in his "quest to take back Russian lands", and Alexander III, known to be his "favourite tsar", and who once quipped that "Russia has only two allies: the army and the navy".[9] Yet in spite of all these very real differences, China and Russia still managed to establish an increasingly close relationship. As its predecessor had done, the Blair government understood that this prospect was, as the UK ambassador to Moscow Sir Roderic Lyne put it, "pretty neuralgic for the Russians".[96] It suggests some I quid pro quo i in response to Russia's support after 9/11 that Blair announced a new NATO-Russia Council at the meetings with Putin. Putin as we know views the war almost entirely through the lens of the United States, or this "empire of lies" as he prefers to call it, whose principal goal he insists is nothing less than "world domination", something which can only be achieved, he argues, by first destroying Russia and then presumably getting rid of him.[4] But there has been another, very different kind of player involved in this "great game": namely the People's Republic of China (PRC), once the USSR's bitterest enemy, now locked into a very special relationship whose terms were outlined in great detail in a 5000-word communiqué published only three weeks before Putin launched his invasion. Ukraine is far more important to Russia than Afghanistan ever was to the Soviet Union, and Putin has tied his own reputation and his sense of Russia's historic destiny to Ukraine.[161] But this could all change. [Extracted from the article]

To choose an effective strategy to stop Putin and Russia's aggressive ambitions in Ukraine and in wider Eastern Europe, Western political and military leaders need to understand his modus operandi and strategic logic. This article focuses on the benefits of game theory in explaining the behavior of the warring parties in Ukraine. It argues that, from an initial "mad man" or a game of chicken strategy chosen by Putin, he has been forced to gradually shift toward a less promising dollar auction model. If the mad man strategy was meant to deter opposing powers from testing Putin's limits, now the dominant game has locked Putin into a self-driven game with ever higher bids and complications for any exit. For an effective response from the West, the key elements are the Ukrainian will to fight but also the brinkmanship of the West in choosing the right moment to force the Kremlin out of the game. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has unleashed the largest and most lethal war on the European continent since 1945. Vladimir Putin and the Russian government bear most of the responsibility for the invasion and its terrible humanitarian consequences. However, explanations for the war deriving from Russian domestic political dynamics or Vladimir Putin's imperial nostalgia do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the crisis that led to war. Situating the crisis and ensuing invasion within the broader historical context of post-Cold War relations, we argue that the war in Ukraine has two main sources. The first is the longstanding Anglo-American grand strategy of NATO consolidation as a vehicle for political and economic domination in Europe. The second is the grand strategy of Russia. Unable to accommodate itself on an equal basis in the new U.S.-led post-Cold War global capitalist order, Russia gradually adopted a geopolitical and nationalistic agenda of confrontation in response to NATO's seemingly inexorable eastward advance, its increasing participation in 'out of area' activities, and the United States' illegal invasions of Serbia, Iraq, and Libya. The collision of these grand strategies has triggered simultaneously a struggle for Ukrainian sovereignty and independence and a U.S.-Russia proxy war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of competitive authoritarian regimes regularly emphasize the political importance of media ownership, commonly assuming that the owners' views are mirrored in the journalists' writing and thus depriving journalists of a distinctive role. We move beyond this narrow perspective, analysing anti-regime protests by journalists in order to develop a better understanding of their role in competitive authoritarian regimes. Our exploratory case study of Ukraine—comparing the stable regime (2010-13) with the Euromaidan protests in late 2013/early 2014— is based on a protest event database of media freedom-related protest actions by journalists (N = 209) and interviews with journalists (N = 31). We examine protest forms, coalition building, claims and targets. To understand journalists' agency in relation to political regime dynamics, we also look at their long-term engagement in contentious politics. While our results show that journalists' own protest actions are not game changers, mainly due to journalists' unwillingness to forge larger coalitions, the politicization of journalists, which leads to political activism and, most importantly, the creation of new media outlets with a political agenda, is an important element in regime dynamics and regime change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has resulted in the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II. As fighting intensifies throughout Ukraine, there is an increasing concern that the Russian Federation may consider the direct use of chemical or radiological weapons against military personnel and civilians in Ukraine. Despite prohibition of chemical weapons from the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, recent evidence has demonstrated that state actors will continue to use these agents as weapons of war and terror, despite publicly denying their use. We review chemical weapons produced and used by the Russian Federation (or its allies) to identify plausible risks in the Russian war in Ukraine. We also provide rapid assessment and treatment guidelines to recognize and manage these acute exposures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the ongoing Russia-West confrontation manifested mainly in the armed conflict in Ukraine, the world's largest war of sanctions, a growing confrontation in cyberspace and politics, the erosion of the system of arms control treaties and a sharp reduction of cooperation in the humanitarian sphere. Russia and the West are fighting not only for influence in Ukraine but also over the future of international relations on a global scale in the coming decades. The most plausible development seems to be a war of attrition, which, however, does not rule out the risk of escalation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has undertaken a strategic transformation to address various threats against the Alliance. Amongst those threats, Russia poses the most inimical and immediate challenge in terms of time, geography, and intent. Following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, what could a strategic policy toward Russia for the next decades look like? What is needed to deter aggression against allies across all domains, to deter below the threshold of armed conflict and to de-escalate and terminate conflict above the threshold? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]