The War of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine in 2014–2025 as a Civilizational Confrontation: Political and International Law Assessments

Abstract

From the beginning, the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine in 2014–2025 was a civilisational clash of existential order and was entirely determined by the Kremlin’s imperial geopolitical radios. The collapse of the USSR became for the rulers of Russia and the majority of its population ‘the greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century’. All the actions of Putin’s authoritarian regime give grounds to state the systemic degradation of Russian statehood and civil society. Today, the Russian Federation has become a major factor in global threats that destroy the world order and the international security system. In the global political, public and academic discourse, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was described in euphemistic terms that inadequately reflected the real state of affairs. Repeating Russian narratives, many politicians and scholars referred to the war as a ‘civil war’, ‘non-international conflict’, ‘crisis in Ukraine’, etc. The compromise of Western states in 2014–2021 gave the military and political leadership of the Russian Federation confidence in impunity for the occupation of Ukrainian territories and violation of the Budapest Memorandum. This gave Putin the confidence that a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 would be met with indifference by the world. There are grounds to state that there are elements of a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine. The number of internally displaced persons and refugees, human losses are reaching critical levels, which have an extremely negative impact on the demographic situation in the country, as well as the moral and mental state of the population. The social consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine are already being assessed as catastrophic. An end to the war is possible with a consolidated position of that part of the international community that professes humanistic values, the principles of democracy and freedom, the territorial integrity of other states and non-interference in their internal affairs.