Off the Cuff Politics—Explaining Russia's Lack of a Ukraine Strategy

Bibliographic Data

ID12299352
AuthorsTor Bukkvoll (corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume53
Issue8
Pages1141-1157
Publication date2001-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEurope Asia Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0966-8136 • E-ISSN: 1465-3427
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09668130120093165
OpenAlexW2008192651
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited2

THERE IS A BLATANT PARADOX in Russia's policy towards Ukraine. On the one hand, there are few discussions that bring out more consensus across the Russian political spectrum than discussions of Russian-Ukrainian relations. On the other hand, Russia was not at any time during the first 10 years of Ukrainian independence able to produce a co-ordinated political strategy for the conduct of relations with her southern neighbour. The recent appointment as ambassador to Ukraine of the political heavyweight and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin could be the first indication of a more coherent Russian Ukraine strategy based on a principle of economy first, but that is still too early to say. How can the 10-year lack of a political strategy be explained? In this article I will try to explain why Russia has not been able to bring into being any coherent strategy in its policy towards Ukraine. This is especially surprising since policy towards Ukraine, more than most other foreign policy issues, was centralised and taken care of by the president and his administration. I will seek my explanations for this lack of strategy on three levels: the cognitive level, the level of resources for influence, and the bureaucratic level. I will structure the article around three working hypotheses on why Russia has not been able to generate a consistent Ukraine policy. First, the Russian political establishment has not truly come to terms with the existence of an independent Ukraine. Second, except for oil and gas, Russia has realised that her resources for influencing Ukraine are limited. Third, peculiarities of the Russian system of foreign policy making-particularly in the Ukrainian case-made a coherent foreign policy difficult to achieve. The focus for this study is not what Russia has and has not achieved in her relations with Ukraine, but why policy towards the southern neighbour has been so haphazard. That is, I focus on output rather than outcome

Economic system · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies · European Politics and Security · Law · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics

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