The tale of two empires: Ukraine between the West and Russia

Abstract

Ukraine has been, since its independence in 1991, located between two qualitatively different types of geopolitical environments - modern to its east and post-modern to its west. Given the tendencies of both to growth, nonetheless, using different means and seeking divergent goals, Ukraine turned into a geopolitical battlefield that due to the internal developments in Russia stepped into a hot phase in 2014 with further escalation in 2022. The article presents an interpretation of the events through neomedieval and imperial lenses, explaining the behaviours of both the West and Russia and the consequences their foreign policies had for the current situation in the country. It concludes that the mutual misunderstanding about the nature of the respective projects - mainly of the voluntary enlargement of the EU and NATO - led to unnecessary clashes and escalation of the contest by the Russian modern empire.