The Kremlin and the principle of self- determination

Abstract

The paper attempts to analyze the principle of self-determination in the international agenda focusing on Moscow´s foreign policy since Gorbachev´s rejection of the Nagorno Karabagh Autonomous Region constitutional request to separate from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan in February 1988 through the successive crises in the Kosovo, the Caucasus and Ukraine. The central argument sustains that the apparent rejection to the principle of self-determination must be understood in the context of Moscow´s continued drive for hegemony in the geopolitical space of Eurasia, and more specifically, in the ex-Soviet space.