Russian Geopolitical Thinking and the Ukrainian Crisis: Neo-imperialist aspirations or merely a survival strategy?
- Autores: Carles Jovaní Gil
- Localización: Pulling together or pulling apart?: Perspectives on nationhood, identity and belonging in Europe / coord. por Susana Bayó Belenguer, Nicola Brady, 2020, ISBN 9781789976755, págs. 203-222
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The Ukrainian crisis marked the end of a post-Cold War order based on restraint andrespect for the territorial sovereignty of the republics that emerged from the ashes of theSoviet Union. It represented a qualitative leap in Russia’s approach to its ‘near abroad’ asMoscow articulated a discourse combining elements of nationalist rhetoric with a stronggeopolitical rationale which set a dangerous precedent for external interference that hastested the responsiveness of the international community. The chapter explores the originsof Russian nationalism, its influence on foreign policy and the strategy underpinning itsapproach to the conflict in Crimea and the Donbas. It concludes that the Kremlin implementeda non-arbitrary policy of expansionism rooted in a feeling of ‘geographicalinsecurity’. The intervention in Ukraine has opened a Pandora’s Box that leads the regionto a future fraught with uncertainty, not least in terms of nationality and identity politics.
