Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research

The sanctions can potentially become a bargaining instrument in the negotiations between the diplomacy of the West and Russia.

The key prerequisite for any future move towards a more co-operative relationship – that both sides are genuinely interested in bringing the current tension to an end – appear increasingly remote.

The prospect of another frozen conflict thus appears increasingly likely, with significant implications for long-term stability and security in Europe.

The grounds for an alliance between European far right and Russia have been motivated by and shaped along the lines of opposition and counteraction to the idea of a “common enemy” in the EU and the US.

In the light of the Ukrainian crisis and its implications for global political actors, Ukraine’s internal balance of political power has been increasingly topical for Western and Russian analysts. From the Western and Russian perspectives, the Ukrainian crisis is a foreign policy issue with serious, but yet controllable, consequences. For Ukraine, the mounting external involvement has an impact on its internal matters that is hard to measure or control.

On July 24th two parliamentary factions left the “European choice” coalition in the Ukrainian parliament.[1] This coalition was formed in February as a result of the Maidan protests. On August 25th, after a month of the coalition breakup, president Poroshenko exercised his constitutional right to dissolve parliament and call for elections, which are likely to be held on October 26th.

In his speech to Russian ambassadors and diplomats on July 1st, President Putin defined Russia’s national interests with regards to current events in the world. A rather substantial part of his address was dedicated to the assessment of the Ukrainian crisis.

A balanced assessment of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict is a rather challenging task for policy-makers. This is in large part because the views and data collected from both sides comes under the influence of two opposing public discourses. On the one hand, Russia is perceived as the aggressor breaking the territorial integrity of Ukraine.