“Russian World” in the black sea region: The case of Ukraine

Abstract

At the beginning of the 1990s, despite the atmosphere of shared historical euphoria due to the end of the global confrontation of the two blocs, the international community was challenged by a key concern about what kind of a new world order should substitute bipolarity. The West was trying to benefit from its victory in the Cold War as well as to fix and expand the new political frontiers, while the Russian Federation (RF) as a successor of the USSR was eager to minimize the losses from its defeat. The “new regionalism” gave a chance to overcome past ideological obstacles on the way to mutually beneficial relations guided by the principles of democratization and shared liberal values.Amore flexible and efficient security framework at all levels became the reaction to the new threats, as well as regimes of power emerging across the globe after 1991. Consequently, the post-bipolar global reordering became much more complicated when Russia started using hybrid mechanisms of waging proxy wars against ex-Soviet republics to justify its own vision of future world order. Moscow’s policies were based on the Russian World concept used for the ideological justification of the new division of the world into spheres of influence.