Abstract
Abstract
On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine. The invasion is the culmination of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia that has been ongoing since the Maidan-revolution in 2013-2014 and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. It is the greatest contemporary challenge to NATO and possibly groundbreaking for Danish Defense policy, which makes it highly relevant to investigate. This study aims to answer the question of why Russia invaded Ukraine and includes several possible factors that affected this decision.
Generally, and by use of relevant historical events, it investigates the development of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s perception of the world leading up to the ongoing invasion. To answer the overall question of why Russia invaded Ukraine this study uses a model of neo-classical realism that provides opportunities to investigate certain factors. By use of document analysis, process tracing, a retrospective approach, and source criticism these factors are investigated with the purpose of describing how each factor possibly affected the decision in favor of an invasion of Ukraine. The results showed that several factors led to the invasion of Ukraine.
The change in the world order from bipolar to unipolar, the eastward expansion of NATO, Putin’s perception of the world, the strategic culture, state-society-relations, the domestic institutions in Russia, the loss of Russian soft-power in Ukraine, and the Russian perception of Ukraine as historically Russian all affected the decision making and ultimately led to the invasion of Ukraine.