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Seit fast vier Monaten herrscht Krieg in der Ukraine. Ein Blick in die Geschichte zeigt, warum Putin glaubt, dem Land die Eigenstaatlichkeit absprechen zu können – und weshalb sein Vorhaben nur scheitern kann.

Russian military aggression and diplomatic pressure against Ukraine stems from the neo-imperial thinking of Russian elites and ordinary citizens. This thinking requires reproduction of expansionist patterns that once led Russia to its “historical greatness”: construction of a territorially large state, rich in resources and demographically diverse, with its own distinct voice in international relations. The human cost for “making Russia forever great,” however, has rarely been seriously considered.

Putin’s Russia suffered a bitter defeat in the first weeks of the Russian-Ukrainian war. However, the Kremlin will keep on trying to place Ukraine into its orbit, as well as project its influence further into the Western world. Unceasing and dynamic aggrandizement under strong leadership is one of the most functional approaches to statecraft in Russia, tested by history and implemented today. In this light, Ukraine has become the vanguard of the Western world. No European nation should feel safe, as there are no limits to the Kremlin’s appetites.

The presentation will address the perspectives of the three biggest Cenral Eastern European post-communist states – Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus – on (dis-)integration. The first demonstrated “total break away” from the “failed” communist system and launched an ambitious “European integration” programme as early as 1989; the second performed a “hybrid break away” and continues struggling to combine communist legacies with democratic aspirations; the third had “no break away” as if communism disintegration never happened which allows the incumbent President Lukashenka to remain in power regardless of numerous protests. The presentation will focus on outlining the dynamics/evolution of (dis-)integration processes and discourses during the last 30 years. For instance, Poland switched to “EU integration” in the 1990’s and, as of today, nurtures the major European “disintegrative narratives”: it compares. Brussels to the communist Kremlin. In turn, Ukraine did not fully accept the crisis of the communist system in the 1990s and today is trying to catch up with its own “hybrid” idea of European integration. Finally, Belarus is yet to invent its vision and discourses of Europan integration.

Alvin Toffler and Marshall McLuhan: both are futurologists who theorized about the impact of information exchange on societies. In the late 1960s, Toffler came up with the concept of future shock, while McLuhan “invented” the global village. I dared combining these two concepts into a sort of “theory of everything” to explain political processes centred around Ukraine: post-truth, nationalist rhetorics, revival of nation-state.

This book aims to uncover and assess changes in the EU's foreign policy towards Ukraine in the times of wide-scale social protests in Kyiv. To accomplish this task, this book enlists and analyses documents, agreements, and treaties which establish the frameworks for EU-Ukraine cooperation. It also identifies the interests of lobbying groups in Brussels. Finally, it describes the impact of the regional balance of powers on EU-Ukraine relations. This book attempts to specify the nature and structures of drivers behind the EU policy towards Ukraine, as well as uncover the place of human rights in these structures. Based on cases from the Orange Revolution, Tax Maidan, and Euromaidan, the book tests a hypothesis that the wide-scale violations of the right for assembly are enough to downplay the preeminence of the EU's economic objectives. If such violations happen, decision-makers in Brussels switch into the "crisis" management mode on the expense of exploring business opportunities.

Collected volume review. Paweł Kowal, Georges Mink and Iwona Reichardt (eds.) "Three Revolutions: Mobilization and Change in Contemporary Ukraine." Volume one. Stuttgart, Ibidem Verlag, 2019.

Book review. Kate Langdon & Vladimir Tismaneanu "Putin’s Totalitarian Democracy: Ideology, Myth, and Violence in the Twenty-First Century", Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.

If we look at the past three decades in the history of Eastern Europe, Ukraine may safely be placed at the top of the chart of “unstable” states. First was the student-led Revolution on Granite in the 1990s. The outcome of that revolution was a resignation of entrenched high-ranked Soviet officials under the pressure of public opinion. Then, if we skip the 1999 anti-Kuchma protests, the next big upheaval was the Orange Revolution in 2003–04. It led to a rerun of the presidential election and eventual reboot of the government. Finally, the massive and blood-soaked EuroMaidan, or Revolution of Dignity, happened in 2013–14—which, once again, led to a drastic change in Ukraine’s ruling elites. All three revolutions were of unprecedented regional magnitude and became a factor in the foreign policy of the EU, Russia, and the US.

Yuriy Lypa stated in the mid-1930s: "The Ukrainian race is an island among its neighbours, an island with its own life, its own holy things and all-human values. Foreign and imposed spiritual values are worthless, and even non-imposed values are adopted in time, only if they pass the nation’s test… The Ukrainian race is an island, and this is its worth. All the values of humankind are measured against its own values. For Ukrainians, the most important world-view meridian is the one that runs through Ukraine."

Post-communist Ukraine is in the midst of implementing reforms which it missed for centuries. It gradually evolves into a unique geopolitical entity which, finally, acquires a fair chance to be consistent and self-sufficient. However, if the West takes a neutral stance today – as it frequently happened in history – a “decentralized” Ukraine will fall again under the centralized Russian assault.

The article outlines the geopolitical rationale behind contemporary Russian expansionism, as well as presents the asymmetric and “hybrid” mechanisms utilized by the Kremlin to solidify its authority in the post-communist space. To do this, the article refers to the findings of American, British, Polish and Ukrainian intellectuals on the nature of the Russian political identity. The four commonly used theoretical frameworks explaining contemporary Russian expansionism are described and critically assessed (imperial, diversionary, divergent identities and “angry guy”). Apart from this, the Russian and foreign political philosophic thought of the XIX-XXI centuries is referred to. The latter was done to trace the evolution of the Russian Byzantium-type governing tradition and national identity. The article puts forward the hypothesis that Russian expansionism, alongside the Russian sentiment towards an imperialist worldview, are tested by historical patterns of national policy-making which bring the state to its civilizational glory. In this light, it will be futile to expect that Russia can fully democratize, build a Western type of a nation-state and start conducting open policies.

Ukraine’s current fight against Russian aggression carries deep historic resonances which we ignore at our peril.

This book first proves that the rationale behind Russia's aggressive actions in its neighborhood resides in its goal of achieving certain geostrategic objectives which are largely predefined by the state's imperial traditions, memories, and fears that the Kremlin may irretrievably lose control over lands which were once Russian. In other words, Russia constantly remains an expansion-oriented and centralized state regardless of epochs and political regimes ruling over it. That is its geopolitical modus operandi successfully tested throughout history. This book also scrutinizes Ukraine as a young post-colonial and post-communist state which, unlike Russia, is more prone to democratize and decentralize. To understand the logics of the ongoing Ukrainian transformation, its domestic and international developments are assessed in their connection to the Soviet political tradition and the medieval legacy of the Cossack statehood (15-18 centuries). This book outlines differences between the political cultures of Ukrainian and Russian nations. This envisages scrutiny of historical experiences and their impacts on the Ukrainian and Russian state-building, institutional structures, national identity, religious issues, and other features of sovereignty. Based on these discoveries, a structure of symbolic thinking which predefines indigenous understandings of justice and order has been constructed for Ukrainians and Russians.

Book review. Taras Kuzio "Putin’s War against Ukraine: Revolution, nationalism and crime," CreateSpace Independent, in association with the Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, 2017

Book review. Abel Polese. "Limits of a Post-Soviet State," Ibidem-Verlag, 2016. ISBN 978-3-8382-0845-9

In the post-Versailles era, Polish leader Józef Piłsudski proposed to the authorities of Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus to forge an Intermarium union for the survival of their states. Piłsudski risked and pushed forward an intellectual speculation on how to strengthen subjectivity and sovereignty of the "young" states in games between major powers. From the perspective of time, this speculation can hardly be defined as a real-life success

The research: (1) embraces peculiarities of the current EU foreign policy towards Ukraine; (2) enumerates and analyzes documents, agreements and treaties which establish the frameworks for this policy; (3) discovers the impact of human rights issues on shaping and conducting this policy. Based on the criminal trials against opposition leaders, the analysis is provided to establish to what extent the human rights violation in Ukraine can worsen the relations between Kyiv and Brussels in the current context. As a result, several key factors which can alter the EU foreign policy towards Ukraine are pointed out.

Few people realise that the idea of establishing a Black Sea Union (BSU) – a regional bloc along the Black Sea littoral – was proposed in the immediate aftermath of WWII. This idea was primarily developed and advocated by Yuriy Lypa, a Ukrainian inter-war political thinker (1900-1944). In his books, Lypa described the dominant cultural, political and economic reasons for Eastern European states to create a supranational body in the Black Sea region. He also elaborated on the principles of common foreign and security policy of the proposed BSU and provided justification for establishing free trade and customs zones. In addition to outlining the dominant characteristics of the BSU, this article assesses the viability of Lypa’s ideas, as well as illustrates the linkages between the BSU and European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC).