Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
Separation of Crimea from Ukraine and its reunification with the territory of Russian Federation is the result of political and military competition and the geopolitics of West and Russian under the leadership of Putin. In this campaign, Russia aims to extend its influence over the neighborhood which had lost due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine crisis changed the balance of power in favor of the West and strengthened the European Union and extended NATO borders. In fact, Russia is considered as the geopolitical loser of this crisis, since without Ukraine, Russia’s efforts to revive the empire will be devoid of geopolitical influence. The present paper aims to investigate the factors affecting the separation of Crimea from Ukraine and its reunification with Russia. In this case, the question that arises is that what factors induced Russia to invade Crimea and annexed it. In response, we hypothesize that the reason for there unification of Crimea with Russia is West threatening acts. However, Russia’s cultural and historical claims toward Crimea played a role in this issue. In this paper, we have attempted to investigate the extension of NATO and European Union to the traditional domain of Russia, viz. Ukraine, based on the analytical and descriptive method and using the balance of threat (BoT) theory of Stephen M. Walt.
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