Since 2014, a new ‘frozen’ conflict has appeared in Europe—a Ukrainian-Russian dispute over Crimea. It partly represented a delayed consequence of the Soviet model of ethno-federalism which greatly contributed to the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991. The annexation of Crimea by Russia poisoned its relations with Ukraine, worsened its relations with the West and has been followed by a war of mutual sanctions between USA, EU and Russia.

Security on our continent has been for the last four decades burdened by armed violence and wars accompanying the disintegration of a number of states in the Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkans and on the territory of the former Soviet Union. These developments resulted in the appearance on the political map of Europe of more than a dozen new and internationally recognized states. Mostly successful secessions within some of these new states created in addition a group of parastates unrecognized or less than universally recognized by the international community. Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Southern Ossetia, Nagorny Karabakh and later also Kosovo came to be treated in the international relations literature as so-called ‘frozen’ conflicts in Europe and its vicinity. With Kosovo moving out of this group, a newcomer appeared in spring 2014. This newcomer is the Ukrainian-Russian conflict over Crimea. It has been closely related to the attempted secessions and armed violence in Eastern Ukraine in which the Russian Federation has been heavily implicated. However, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine differs in several important respects from that over Crimea and, so far, its present outcome.

International Relations Journal, On the Geopolitical Aspects of the Conflict over Crimea