The partnership that failed: EU-Russia relations and the war in Ukraine

Abstract

Between 2014 and 2021, the EU’s relationship with Russia oscillated between the ever more elusive quest for a mutually acceptable geopolitical balance and increasing conflict. The conflict focused primarily on the future of Ukraine. Three new books analyse essential parts of this conundrum: the changing nature of the EU’s power in the context of the Ukraine conflict, the long-standing EU-Russia business and energy relationship, and the self-image and external perceptions of EU foreign policy towards Ukraine. While written before the 2022 war, the books remain highly relevant because they dissect an ongoing process of changing EU actorness in its Eastern neighbourhood. In order to analyse the path to the 2022 war and its aftermath, future research must expand on this scholarship by enlarging the spectrum of theoretical approaches while navigating the new constraints that the war and the ensuing tense policy debates have put on empirical work.