The Crimean Crisis and the Russian-Ukrainian War: a View from the Perspective of Political Neorealism

Abstract

A comprehensive analysis of the peculiarities of the use of theoretical, conceptual and methodological tools of such a scientific field in international political science as political neorealism to study the Crimean crisis and the beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian armed confrontation was carried out in the article. It is claimed that the Crimean crisis (2014) and the beginning of the armed Russian-Ukrainian confrontation was caused not only by Russia’s reaction to the events in Ukraine and changes in its foreign policy orientations. Also by such international political factors as the expansion of democratic values by the United States and Western Europe to states that were a part of Moscow’s geopolitical responsibility and Washington’s desire to resolve its own security issues. Moreover, without taking into account the interests of other states in the modern world, which creates even more anarchy in international politics, conflicting of structure and encourages other states to take actions in order to increase the level of self-protection and ensure the realization of national security interests.
The problem of research becomes especially relevant in connection with the need to conceptualize the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia in terms of political neorealism. The basic idea is whether Russia's interference in the internal affairs of the post-Soviet countries and its violation of the territorial integrity of these states can be recognized as legitimate in terms of political neorealism. The aim of the study is to analyse the Crimean crisis and the beginning of the Ukrainian-Russian armed confrontation using the scientific direction in international political science as political neorealism. It is substantiated that political neorealism provides an opportunity to determine the basis of the behavior of states in a unipolar system of international relations, as well as to determine the reasons for the predominance of violent means among measures to increase their level of protection.