Russian Aggression in Ukraine Political, International Legal and Economic Consequences

Abstract

In the context of globalization, civilization breaks and the formation of a multipolar world, the major vital interest for Russia is to achieve the status of a world power, one of the main centres of global influence. Given the current global transformations, Russia in the status of nation-state is not able to achieve that status. Therefore there is no coincidence that V. Putin is trying to represent Russia as a state-civilization. However, for this status Russia lacks a critical geopolitical weight, which can only be increased due to Ukraine’s accession to the so- called cultural space in the form of such projects as the “Russian World” and the Eurasian Union. That is why for Russia it has become crucial to distract Ukraine from the Association Agreement with the EU; homogenize the political regime in Ukraine with the Russian authoritarian regime; include Ukrainian society in the Russian civilization space by turning it into a “Little Russian” society; deprive Ukraine of economic resources and appropriate incentives needed to implement the European integration course, and, ultimately, to absorb the Ukrainian state.