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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • List of Members
    • Ukraine Experts
    • About Membership
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New Policy Memo: Approaches to State- and Nation-Building in Russia’s Ukraine Policy

  • October 15, 2014
  • Yulia Nikitina

A characteristic picture of Western media evaluations of Russian foreign policy toward Ukraine (and the post-Soviet space more generally) can be discerned in the questions of French journalists to Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 4, 2014, in Sochi on the eve of a visit to France. Such questions included: What is your vision of Russian strategy—dialogue or expansionism and conquest? Do you want to reestablish an empire or develop Russia within its current borders? Russian troops annexed Crimea; do you plan to return it to Ukraine? Do you want to integrate Ukraine into Russia and have you tried to destabilize the situation there? Who convinced you that you have a special mission for Russia?

Besides the opinion widely shared in the West that Russian foreign policy is based on neo-imperialism, what other explanatory frameworks could exist for Russia’s recent behavior? In contrast with the value-based foreign policy of the United States, Russian foreign policy is usually analyzed as interest-based and devoid of values. I claim that Russian foreign policy is widely based on attempts to export Russian state- and nation-building models. Mainstream official discourse and political research on the post-Soviet states in the West are framed around democracy and human rights, while for post-Soviet states, nation-building and state-building are more vital issues than regime type.  

Experts most often explain the Russian role in the Ukraine crisis as a result of the non-democratic nature of Russia’s political regime. Another interpretation, however, is that during the recent events in Ukraine, Russian elites have tried to demonstrate that Russian state-building and nation-building models are more successful than those of Ukraine. The annexation/reunification/reintegration of Crimea (the choice of term depends on the source of discourse, and so I will use the latter term in this memo) is the result of this type of foreign policy thinking.

See the full text | PDF

Yulia Nikitina
Yulia Nikitina
Website | + posts
Associate Professor of World Politics and Research Fellow at the Center for Post-Soviet Studies
Affiliation

Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO)
Links

MGIMO (Bio)
Expertise

Russian and Eurasian Security Politics in Eurasia, Russian Regional Organizations
  • Yulia Nikitina
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yulia-nikitina/
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    Россия vs. Турция: а где российские союзники?
  • Yulia Nikitina
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yulia-nikitina/
    Подходы к строительству государства и нации в политике России по отношению к Украине
  • Yulia Nikitina
    https://www.ponarseurasia.org/members/yulia-nikitina/
    Approaches to State- and Nation-Building in Russia’s Ukraine Policy
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