Ukraine In Crisis

A leading Ukraine specialist and firsthand witness to the 2014 Kiev Uprising analyzes the world’s newest flashpoint The aftereffects of the February 2014 Uprising in Ukraine are still reverberating around the world. The consequences of the popular rebellion and Russian President Putin’s attempt to strangle it remain uncertain. In this book, Andrew Wilson combines a spellbinding, on-the-scene account of the Kiev Uprising with a deeply informed analysis of what precipitated the events, what has developed in subsequent months, and why the story is far from over. Wilson situates Ukraine’s February insurgence within Russia’s expansionist ambitions throughout the previous decade. He reveals how President Putin’s extravagant spending to develop soft power in all parts of Europe was aided by wishful thinking in the EU and American diplomatic inattention, and how Putin’s agenda continues to be widely misunderstood in the West. The author then examines events in the wake of the Uprising—the military coup in Crimea, the election of President Petro Poroshenko, the Malaysia Airlines tragedy, rising tensions among all of Russia's neighbors, both friend and foe, and more. Ukraine Crisis provides an important, accurate record of events that unfolded in Ukraine in 2014. It also rings a clear warning that the unresolved problems of the region have implications well beyond Ukrainian borders.

The crisis in Ukraine that began in November 2013 constitutes a turning point in Euro-Atlantic security with potential global repercussions. It is the most significant security problem between Russia and the ‘West’ in the post Cold War period and the crisis has marked a new era in global politics. Contributions in this edited volume attempt to address a number of key aspects of the Ukrainian issue. How does the crisis impact upon Black Sea geopolitics and on regional governance? How can EU – Russia relations evolve under the new multipolar system? How is NATO affected? How important is the energy parameter in Russia-Ukraine-EU triangle? This edited volume aims to discloses the diverse narratives on the roots, evolution and repercussions of the crisis, indicating the extent of its complexity and highlighting important parameters of the Ukrainian issue. This book was originally published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

Disorder erupted in Ukraine in 2014, involving the overthrow of a sitting government, the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and a violent insurrection, supported by Moscow, in the east of the country. This Adelphi book argues that the crisis has yielded a ruinous outcome, in which all the parties are worse off and international security has deteriorated. This negative-sum scenario resulted from years of zero-sum behaviour on the part of Russia and the West in post-Soviet Eurasia, which the authors rigorously analyse. The rivalry was manageable in the early period after the Cold War, only to become entrenched and bitter a decade later. The upshot has been systematic losses for Russia, the West and the countries caught in between. All the governments involved must recognise that long-standing policies aimed at achieving one-sided advantage have reached a dead end, Charap and Colton argue, and commit to finding mutually acceptable alternatives through patient negotiation.

The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has brought the world to the brink of a new Cold War. As Russia and Ukraine tussle for Crimea and the eastern regions, relations between Putin and the West have reached an all-time low. How did we get here? Richard Sakwa here unpicks the context of conflicted Ukrainian identity and of Russo-Ukrainian relations and traces the path to the recent disturbances through the events which have forced Ukraine, a country internally divided between East and West, to choose between closer union with Europe or its historic ties with Russia. In providing the first full account of the ongoing crisis, Sakwa analyses the origins and significance of the Euromaidan Protests, examines the controversial Russian military intervention and annexation of Crimea, reveals the extent of the catastrophe of the MH17 disaster and looks at possible ways forward following the October 2014 parliamentary elections. In doing so, he explains the origins, developments and global significance of the internal and external battle for Ukraine.With all eyes focused on the region, Sakwa unravels the myths and misunderstandings of the situation, providing an essential and highly readable account of the struggle for Europe's contested borderlands.

Since 1991, Canada has provided Ukraine with ongoing political and economic assistance. Never was this policy pursued with more urgency than in 2014, when Russian aggression prompted the Canadian government to elevate its support for Ukraine to a foreign policy priority. Although the move is often described as a radical departure, Bohdan Kordan and Mitchell Dowie contend that it was consistent with Canada's security interests and political and historical identity. In this calculation the worldview of Prime Minister Stephen Harper also figured prominently. Canada and the Ukrainian Crisis offers a timely explanation of the dynamic interaction between key factors - at the international, national, and individual levels - that shaped the Canadian government's response and imbued it with an unusual degree of urgency. Explaining the nature of the crisis and why it elicited such a forceful reaction from the Harper government, Kordan and Dowie assert that Canada's decision to side openly with Ukraine is best understood as a course correction, rather than a completely new foreign policy direction. They argue that this action reaffirmed Canada's historical commitment to a liberal rules-based order that has been an emblem of its foreign policy since the Second World War, treating the Ukrainian crisis as part of a wider struggle to defend liberal principles and values. Resolving lingering questions about the most serious geopolitical event since the end of the Cold War, Canada and the Ukrainian Crisis demonstrates that the policy changes triggered by the crisis represent a return to deep-rooted concerns about international order.

This book examines the causes and consequences of the Ukraine crisis, with a special focus on Russia’s relations with the West. Towards that end, it brings together international relations scholars and area specialists. Issues covered include: the evolution of EU–Russia and US–Russia relations, the role of strategic culture and ontological insecurities in the formation of Russian foreign policy, the role of hybrid warfare in Russian military policy, the geopolitical drivers of Russia’s Ukraine policy, and a discussion of the decision-making dynamics that led to Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine. The contributors employ different theoretical approaches and offer partly complementary and partly competing analyses. In so doing, this book seeks to stimulate dialogue between different positions and advance our understanding of a topic that will shape the European security order for many years to come. This book was originally published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

Recent events in Ukraine and Russia and the subsequent incorporation of Crimea into the Russian state, with the support of some circles of inhabitants of the peninsula, have shown that the desire of people to belong to the Western part of Europe should not automatically be assumed. Discussing different perceptions of the Ukrainian-Russian war in neighbouring countries, this book offers an analysis of the conflicts and issues connected with the shifting of the border regions of Russia and Ukraine to show how ’material’ and ’psychological’ borders are never completely stable ideas. The contributors – historians, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists from across Europe – use an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to explore the different national and transnational perceptions of a possible future role for Russia.

Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the decades between the end of the cold war and the crisis of 2014, the country suffered a large decline in agricultural and industrial production, plunging economic indicators into a sharp decline and leading to large-scale poverty and hardship. This collection by leading scholars from the region explores the various crises affecting Ukraine since independence. Valuable crisis management research is made available from both Russian and Ukrainian sources and the on-going crisis in Ukraine put in context and analysed. This accessible volume interacts with many disciplines including political science, security studies, crisis management and communication studies; and should prove useful to both students and researchers.