Abstract

Russia’s February 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and subsequent intervention in support of eastern Ukrainian separatists marked a watershed for Russian foreign policy. This forceful revision of borders confirmed Russia’s mounting tendency to view the West as a strategic rival, while highlighting the wide range of diplomatic, economic, and military tools Moscow was willing to employ to secure its interests in its immediate neighbourhood. The crisis over Ukraine was also symptomatic of an estrangement between Moscow and the West that had been mounting for several years. Indeed, Russia has constructed an ideological and historical narrative emphasizing its non-Western identity and supporting the Kremlin’s aspiration to become an independent pole in an increasingly multipolar global order. In so doing, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has precipitated what is likely to be a long-running stand-off with the West that deepens Russian dependence on China and creates increased political uncertainty within Russia itself.