The choice of a given state’s international alliance orientation constitutes for most
western countries the state’s own prerogative. It is unimaginable for a state in modern times
and according to the concepts of independence and sovereignty not to freely decide and
implement its national interests in respect to its foreign alliances. However, this is not the
case for former soviet states, as was explicitly manifested in the case of Georgia’s 2008 war
with Russia and again in the current case of Ukraine. Independence and sovereignty either
comes with high costs for the ex-soviet countries or they constitute only nominal and not
essential values since those states are regarded by Russia as its own spheres of influence and
not as sovereign states. Will Ukraine’s international orientation against Russia’s interests,
which triggered a mini-civil war and the loss of Crimea to Russia, become the spark for a new
cold war atmosphere in the international relations between the west and Russia? Or will the
Ukrainian crisis form a stagnant frozen conflict area in the inter-space of the European Union
and Russia? In order to address these questions and furthermore understand the 2014 crisis
in Ukraine it is necessary to trace back Ukraine’s heterogeneous formation with regard to its
population as well as its ties with Russia, two factors of paramount importance which
undermine Ukraine’s independent and sovereign statehood.
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