The Territorial Dimension of Russian Aggression Against Ukraine—Polish and European Perspective

Abstract

Russian aggression against Ukraine and the associated sanctions from the side of the United States and the European Union resulted in gradual changes in the previous directions of the socio-economic linkages. Besides this global scale, the war in Ukraine has also influenced the linkages and the spatial structures on the regional or local levels. The purpose of the present article is to provide an initial identification of the development of new territorial differentiation in three dimensions: socio-demographic (migrations), economic (first of all the official trade exchange), as well as infrastructural (extension and use of transport networks). The focus here was on the potential consequences that can take place in Europe and in Poland (as a country bordering Ukraine and playing a very special role in both the social relations—the inflow of refugees, and in the economic ones—intermediation in the interactions between the European Union and Ukraine). Identification of spatial differentiation was performed on the basis of analysis of various statistical data, including, in particular, cross-border traffic data, Polish foreign trade at LAU1 level, inflow of refugees (official data of the Polish government), or the secondary data, resulting from project work (in particular, ESPON IRiE). The ultimate scale of the influence of war in Ukraine, neither on the society nor on the economy, cannot be established at this stage of the conflict. The studies performed confirm, however, that the consequences (in each of the dimensions analyzed) are highly territorially diversified. This diversification, though, does not concern only countries or even regions. It has also a local dimension and as such should be adequately perceived by the public authorities of different levels.