The West in Russian Discourses of Sovereignty During the 2014 Ukraine Crisis: Between ‘Compatriot Protection’ and ‘Non-Interference’

Abstract

The study challenges the conventional wisdom that Russia’s approach to state sovereignty is inconsistent and contradictory. It closely examines official statements alongside debates on the 2014 Ukraine crisis in the Russian State Duma, tracing the way two seemingly divergent notions—sovereignty as non-interference and sovereignty as responsibility towards a broader ethnic/civic community—are constituted in Russia’s wider political elite discourse. It argues that there is more commonality than divergence between the two main discursive positions as both are made possible by radical anti-Westernism, which was remarkably consistent throughout the different stages of the 2014 Ukraine conflict.