Kakaя это дружба/what kind of friendship is this? Russia’s “Crimean Syndrome”

ABSTRACT

Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea without the consent of Ukraine was a rare case of a state taking territory from a state with whom it previously enjoyed friendly relations. The paper seeks to explain the causes and consequences of this annexation by examining theories of democratic peace, constructivism and irredentism. In 1971, political scientist Myron Weiner published an article “The Macedonian Syndrome” in the journal World Politics (vol. 23, no. 4, 665–683). In particular, the paper examines the applicability of Weiner’s theses to Russia’s 2014 attempt to annex Crimea from Ukraine. While Weiner’s theory helps to explain Russia’s moves, his theory can be updated to consider the consequences of those moves. Russia attempted to justify its annexation by transposing the concept of friendship from Ukraine itself to a piece of its territory – Crimea. This transposition rested on a false dichotomy between Ukraine and Crimea, and Russia’s failure to live up to its international commitments to respect Ukrainian borders brought swift consequences in the form of Western sanctions.

KEYWORDS:

• Russian foreign policy
• Ukraine
• ethnicity and nationalism
• irredentism
• conflict

Acknowledgements

The original version of this paper was presented to the 47th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, Philadelphia, PA, 22 November 2015. I am grateful to the other panelists for comments. I am also grateful to two anonymous reviews for their suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Andrea Chandler is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

Notes

1 Weiner 1971.

2 The Russian words used were “Glavnymi ispolnitel’iami perevorota stali natsionalisty, neonatsisty, rusofoby, i antisemity.” (Putin 2014).

3 Putin’s words were “eto simvoly Russkoi voinskoi slavy.” (Putin 2014).

4 In fairness, the resolution also expressed concern about some of the moves on the Ukrainian side, but considered the new Ukrainian government to be legitimate. Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly 2014b.