Russia, Ukraine and the climate crisis: Transforming circuits of power

Abstract

The paper addresses a history of the present, doing so in relation to UN Sustainable Development Goal #13, that of taking urgent action to combat climate change. It uses key concepts from the circuits of power framework (Clegg 1989; 2023) to do so; notably the idea of social and system integration, adapted from Lockwood (1964). The focus is on the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on European system integration that is dependent on trade in fossils fuels. The paper begins by a backwards glance at how the Soviet Union disintegrated to become Putin’s Russia, via Gorbachev’s attempts at reforming the basis for social integration (Brown, 1997). It contrasts the social integration of Russia with that of the Western democracies. All of this discussion is preparatory to a consideration of Putin’s paradoxes in invading Ukraine and how the unanticipated consequences of this strategic choice point to an undermining of the basis of Putin’s power. The cost inflation and limiting of gas supplies to Europe by supply chain disruption that have been a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provide a massive stimulus for the greening of the global economy’s energy sources, thus undermining the resource based power on which the Russian economy is founded.