





































14              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

 

 

 

No Great Russia without Greater Russia: 

The Kremlin’s Thinking behind the Invasion of Ukraine  

 

Tom Casier, University of Groningen 

  
 

 
 

Abstract 

This paper argues that to understand the invasion of Ukraine, it is necessary to have better 

insights into the Kremlin’s particular worldview and Russia’s place within it. This view is based 

on a sense of entitlement to great power status going hand in hand with an identity of itself as 

a country that extends beyond the actual borders of the Russian Federation. What makes the 

position unique is that the geopolitical and identity arguments are inseparable: in the Kremlin’s 

worldview, Russia can only be a great power if it also exists as greater Russia. This structural 

factor is labelled the geopolitics-identity nexus. To explain why the invasion happened in 2022, 

three additional process factors are outlined: a radicalization of the view of Ukraine as Russian 

lands, driven by the feeling of existential crisis when tensions over Ukraine escalated in 2014; 

an escalation of policy options resulting from consecutive failures in Russia’s Ukraine policy; 

and a reversal of the argument that Russia has to be a great power to exist within its 1991 

borders into the argument that Russia has to expand its territory to be a great power. 

 

  

  



15              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

Introduction 

In the avalanche of the early analysis of Russia’s war against Ukraine, a large part of the 

discussion focused on the motivations of the Kremlin to launch a major offensive on February 

24, 2022. In the discipline of International Relations, Moscow’s decision has often been read 

as a confirmation of a particular theoretical view. Yet major events like the current war invite 

critical self-reflection rather than the hardening of theoretical positions. After all, this is a war 

that many—including foreign policy experts close to the Kremlin—were not expecting. Taking 

a step back to grasp the complexity behind Russia’s decision may therefore be a more fruitful 

approach. 

The analysis starts from the idea that Russia’s often-voiced security concerns cannot explain 

the decision to go to war for different reasons. First, the war has dramatically aggravated 

Russia’s security situation rather than improving it. Second, there is a huge discrepancy 

between Russian-Western tensions over security prior to the war and Russia’s aim of territorial 

expansion as the main objective of the war. Any explanation necessitates a better understanding 

of the Kremlin’s worldview. In particular, it is argued that in this worldview, Russia’s sense of 

entitlement to a great power status has blended with a form of identity thinking whereby 

Russian lands extend well beyond Russia’s borders. It is against the background of this 

geopolitics-identity nexus that the Kremlin has come to see territorial expansion as an essential 

part of its ‘greatpowerness.’1 It constitutes a key structural factor required to understand the 

Kremlin’s decision to go to war. Yet it does not explain why this major war was launched in 

2022 and not in the three decades preceding. Therefore, the paper suggests three complementary 

process factors that explain how the Kremlin’s thinking radicalized between 2014 and 2022. 

The first section reflects critically on some recurring interest-based explanations of the war and 

pleads to take the worldview of the Kremlin into account. This paves the way for developing 

the central argument of the paper, whereby the geopolitics-identity nexus is seen as a key 

structural element crucial to understanding the decision. The following section focuses on the 

process factors that explain the dynamics of the process and considers both the radicalization 

of identity thinking and policy failures. In the last section, some reflections are made about the 

significance of these findings for the ongoing war and Europe’s security order. 

 

Explaining Russia’s War against Ukraine 

A variety of explanations have been provided for Russia’s decision to start a full-scale war 

against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The one that received the most attention was 

undoubtedly John Mearsheimer’s structural realist explanation. Renewing the argument he 

originally launched to explain the Ukraine crisis in 2014, Mearsheimer continued to state that 

the West was to blame. The conflict, he stated, is “all about the West’s efforts to make Ukraine 

a Western bulwark on Russian borders” (Mearsheimer 2022). It is the West that, through its 

actions, posed “an existential threat” to Russia and left it “no choice” but to react (Mearsheimer 

2022). Others have explained the war from radically different theoretical perspectives. Yudin 

(2022), for example, spoke from a critical theory perspective and linked the war to 

neoliberalism. He qualified the Putin regime as a “radical version of neoliberalism” and argued 

that the decision to invade has been wrongly understood in terms of geopolitical goals 

superseding economic interests (Yudin 2022, 1). Yudin states, “This war is not so much a 

collision of two imperial powers as it is a war waged by capital unchained. Putin’s successful 

 
1 Although the word ‘greatpowerness’ is not an English word, it has been widely used as a translation of the Russian word 

velikoderzhavnost’. See, for example, Smith 2014. 



16              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

experience of building a neoliberal state and corrupting global elites made him consider brute 

force as the ultimate political argument” (Yudin 2022, 9). Drawing on resource dependency 

theory, Johannesson and Clowes (2022) claimed that “Russian control of both Ukraine’s energy 

markets and resources for its own use and their strategic denial to the EU was the key motive 

for Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine” in 2014 (7). They claimed that “scholars have not 

fully considered how Russian control over the more strategic areas of Ukraine could close the 

[resource] gap” (Johannesson and Clowes 2022, 6).  

What all these explanations have in common is that they use abstract, theoretical schemes and 

apply them to the reality of the war, not to test these theories, but to offer a particular framework 

for interpretation and select information in function of that. To put it more bluntly, the reality 

gets adapted to the theory rather than the theory to the reality. In the case of Mearsheimer, this 

means that exclusive attention is given to one line of argumentation by the Kremlin. In 

particular, in 2021 – the year preceding the war, Putin systematically built up a discourse of 

Russia’s security being threatened by the West. In April 2021, he spoke about a “red line” for 

Russia’s core security interests that could not be crossed and would invite an “asymmetrical, 

swift and tough” response, adding: “We ourselves will determine in each specific case where 

[the red line] will be drawn” (Putin 2021b). By the end of the year, in December 2021, this 

undefined threat was translated into three unconditional demands that became the diplomatic 

focus in US-Russia relations: no further expansion of NATO to the post-Soviet space, no 

deployment of offensive weapons in the proximity of Russia, and the withdrawal of NATO 

military infrastructure from countries that joined NATO after 1997. It was clear—and telling—

that these were unrealistic demands that did not have the slightest chance of being met. 

Interestingly, when the war was about to break out in February 2022, these elements faded into 

the background in the Russian discourse (Putin 2022a and 2022b). It is only considerably later 

during the war that the Kremlin will return to framing the war as a war with the West and Russia 

only defending itself – something that stands in sharp contrast with the reality of the war. 

The one-sided focus on Russia’s security rhetoric ignored a second discourse, equally coming 

from the Kremlin, which was identity-based and spoke about Ukraine as essentially ‘Russian 

lands.’ In the summer of 2021, Putin (2021a) published an article in which he presented a long 

and selective reading of history to make the claim that Russians and Ukrainians, as well as 

Belarusians, are part of one “triune nation.”2 He questions the borders of Ukraine and speaks 

of an “artificial division of Russians and Ukrainians.” In retrospect, it can certainly be argued 

that many analysts have not taken Putin’s article seriously enough. Dmitry Shlapentokh, for 

example, argued that “Putin’s article was not just one of his intellectual exercises; as events 

have revealed, it was also implicitly a plan for possible actions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 

demonstrates that Putin’s vision must be taken seriously” (Shlapentokh 2021, 9). That the 

article was more than the gimmick it was taken for became clear with his speech on February 

21, 2022, a few days before the invasion, where Putin (2022a) made similar, very elaborate 

‘historical’ arguments, calling Ukraine a Bolshevik creation and suggesting it should be undone. 

However, there is more than this twofold discourse of the Kremlin about security and Ukrainian 

sovereignty. A lot speaks against the assumption that the war can be explained on the basis of 

Russia’s security concerns.3 First, the fact that tensions over security between Russia and the 

 
2 The term “triune” is used in the Kremlin’s official translation. The term triune expresses the idea of three in one, referring 

to the religious idea of the Holy Trinity. 
3 Alternative explanations have gone in many different directions referring to a clash of values, Putin’s personality, the 

diversion from domestic issues to Russia’s ‘expansionist’ and ‘revisionist’ nature (see Stubb 2022 for this multi-factor 

analysis). Maria Mälksoo argued that “Russian imperialism and colonialism are among the many blind spots of the academic 

field of IR” (Mälksoo 2022, 4). Götz and Staun (2022) looked into Russia’s strategic culture and singled out Russia’s sense 

of vulnerability vis-à-vis the West and sense of greatpowerness as key factors. 



17              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

West preceded the 2022 war does not mean these tensions have caused the war. A lot more 

evidence is required to make that point. Second, the prospect of eventual accession to NATO 

was offered to Ukraine back in 2008.4 This was not less than 14 years before the invasion, and 

the offer was nothing but a political statement. Accession was simply not on the agenda. Third, 

the question remains how the war against Ukraine would have alleviated Russia’s security 

concerns. Russia is now involved in the biggest interstate war in Europe since the Second World 

War, and its outcome is very uncertain. It is the target of unprecedented Western sanctions. It 

has seen the export of its oil and gas to EU countries dwindle. Finland and Sweden are due to 

become NATO members. Moreover, Russia is often isolated and has arguably lost a lot of its 

influence both regionally and globally, as, for example, the summit meeting of the European 

Political Community in Prague in October 2022 underlined.5 European states have drastically 

increased their defence spending.  Germany, a country that has been so crucial in the 

reconciliation between the West and the Soviet Union (and later Russia), has gone through a 

‘historic shift’ and is an active supplier of lethal weapons to Ukraine. 

In an interview briefly before the invasion of Ukraine, Dmitri Trenin—a pre-eminent Russian 

foreign policy analyst—made an important point:  

No degree of NATO expansion, including to incorporate Ukraine, will threaten 

the military balance and deterrence stability…Therefore, in terms of military 

security, it’s correct to say I don’t see NATO expansion as such a terrible 

threat…But there is another factor: a country that becomes a NATO member 

undergoes profound reformatting, which touches upon all walks of life. The 

country transforms politically and ideologically. While Ukraine is outside of 

NATO, it’s still possible that the entire country or some part of it may decide 

that the Slavic identity, the ‘Russian world,’ and other things matter, and this 

may lead to a normalization of relations with Russia, and even closer relations 

with it. At least, from Moscow’s vantage point, such a possibility remains. But 

if a country joins NATO, that’s it: that ship has sailed. In this sense, yes, there 

is a threat but not a military one; rather, it’s geopolitical and geocultural. (Trenin 

2022)  

Trenin suggests that Russia’s real concern is not security related but is derived from a 

combination of geopolitical and cultural factors. It is about ‘losing’ Ukraine to the West. This 

article argues that this blend of geopolitical and identity-based thinking is key to understanding 

the Kremlin’s attitude. At the same time, this argument is an invitation not to discuss Russia’s 

motivations purely in terms of rationality or irrationality. Rather, it is necessary to understand 

the Kremlin’s ‘worldviews,’ the representations that inform their decisions but do not represent 

rational, ‘objective’ calculations. In other words, what matters is not whether this war was 

rational but how it seemed ‘reasonable’ to the Russian leadership. According to Katzenstein 

and Seybert, standards of reasonableness are variable and diverse (2018, 88). They represent 

different worldviews, historical memories, emotions, moral prescriptions, etc. They filter 

information and thus explain how the same information may lead to different choices and risk-

taking. 

The analysis in the rest of the paper demonstrates that the Kremlin’s motivation cannot be 

understood without reference to a blend of geopolitical and identity reasoning. The latter 

 
4 Art. 23 of the Bucharest Summit Declaration states that “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic 

aspirations for membership in NATO.  We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO” (NATO 

2008).   
5 The European Political Community is a broad intergovernmental forum that was proposed by French President Macron and 

seeks coordination of foreign policy positions beyond the EU member states. 



18              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

combines the idea that Russia is entitled to being a great power and that it can only be so by 

being ‘greater Russia’ – a Russia that extends beyond the borders of the Russian Federation and 

minimally encompasses the Slavic core of the former Soviet Union. This will be presented as a 

key structural factor essential to explaining why the Kremlin decided to launch a large-scale 

war against Ukraine. This, however, leaves another element to be answered. Simply put: why 

did it happen when it happened, in 2022? Why not in 2014, and why not prior to that? While 

many different elements may have played a role, this paper focuses on the radicalization that 

took place between 2014 and 2022: a radicalization of this blended geopolitical and identity 

thinking that reinforced the view of Ukraine as ‘Russian lands,’ as well as a radicalization of 

the policy options to find a permanent solution for the perceived ‘Ukraine problem’ and 

Russia’s feeling of an ‘existential crisis’ after the events in Ukraine in 2014 (Youngs 2017). 

These elements constitute the process factors that help to explain why the Kremlin decided to 

start a far-reaching war in 2022. 

 

Structural Factor: The Geopolitics-Identity Nexus 

Ever since the demise of the Soviet Union, the objective of regaining great power status for 

Russia has been a key objective of its leaders (see inter alia Freire 2019; Miskimmon & 

O’Loughlin 2017; Tsygankov 2005). This ambition is at the heart of its strategic culture (Götz 

and Staun 2022). It has been a constant objective; what has changed is the way in which 

Moscow seeks to achieve it.  

The seeking of great power status is not simply a result of geostrategic thinking, as expressed 

in Brzezinski’s famous statement: “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. 

Russia without Ukraine can still strive for imperial status, but it would then become a 

predominantly Asian imperial state…” (Brzezinski 1997, 46). Presented this way, geopolitical 

thinking appears as purely objective, unbiased by cognition. Yet the geopolitical reasoning in 

the Kremlin cannot be disconnected from the way it perceives Russia and its relations with 

others and is interwoven with its identity as empire. The Kremlin lacks the capacity to think of 

Russia as something else but a great power, as something else but an empire. The collapse of 

the Soviet Union did not lead to the disappearance of the imperial mindset. Russia never went 

through its post-colonial moment and has never taken the first step to come to terms with its 

own colonial past (Mälksoo 2022). As a result, Russia’s current war can be seen as “an epitome 

of its struggle to reconnect with its past imperial self” (Mälksoo 2022, 7). 

Of course, this colonial past has its own specifics. Russia was a “pre-modern empire” (Lieven 

2002) that expanded its territory gradually by conquering neighbouring lands and absorbing 

diverse populations and cultures into its empire. As a result of its rapid expansion, it grew as an 

empire before it developed a clear concept of nation. Some of the newly conquered territories 

were Russified, while others maintained their identities to some extent. In contrast to modern 

colonial empires, such as the British Empire, the borders between the centre and periphery of 

the empire, between the fatherland and the colonies, were never clear-cut. 

As a result, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia was reduced to the borders of the 

Russian Federation, the country maintained a complex relationship with its national identity. It 

had difficulties in dissociating itself from its imperial past. Akopov aptly describes the 

sentiment of “national loneliness” that dominates the Russian mindset (Akopov 2020, 296). 

Russia on its own is not considered to be complete; it is a “fortress of solitude” (Akopov 2020, 

305). As a result, Russian thinking continues to be imbued with “fraternalist narratives 

concerning brotherly links and paternalistic relationships to the Russian leaders, who continue 

to consider former Soviet states, especially Ukraine and Belarus, as ‘naturally’ belonging to 



19              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

Russia’s cultural and political sphere of influence” (Akopov 2020, 295-296). They appear 

powerfully at the policy level, inter alia in the idea of Russia as a “state-civilisation” 

(Tsygankov 2017; Akopov 2020). These representations never entirely disappeared from the 

Russian mindset, but—as will be argued in the next section—received a new boost after the 

start of the 2014 Ukraine crisis, of which the outcome was read in the Kremlin as ‘losing’ 

Ukraine to the West – very much in line with Trenin’s geocultural argument above.  

These sorts of representations are clearly visible in many of Putin’s statements. In his article on 

Ukraine in 2021, he made the following statement about Ukraine and Russia: “Together we 

have always been and will be many times stronger and more successful. For we are one people” 

(Putin 2021a). In his television address on February 21, 2022, he added that “modern Ukraine 

was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia” and 

“never had stable traditions of real statehood” (Putin 2022a). In sum, Ukraine was defined as 

“an inalienable part of our [Russia’s] own history, culture and spiritual space” (Putin 2022a) 

and this is, per definition, understood to mean it is essentially Russian and, therefore, Russia 

can make legitimate claims to it. In other words, there is an essentialist claim as to what is 

Russian, fully determined by the centre and not leaving any agency to Ukraine. Nothing 

illustrates the Russian claims better than Putin’s reference (and apparent comparison) to Tsar 

Peter the Great a few months into the war: “It seemed [Peter the Great] was at war with Sweden, 

he took something from them. He did not take anything from them, he returned [what was 

Russia’s]…Well, it seems it has also fallen to us to take back and strengthen [territories]” (Putin 

2022c). 

This way of thinking pictures Russia not as an empire that came about by territorial expansion 

but as an empire entitled to the territories it once controlled, territories that are essentially theirs. 

This allows Putin to position Russia not as an imperialist force or colonizer but exactly the 

opposite. In his speech on the occasion of the annexation of four Ukrainian regions in 

September 2022, he managed to present Russia as the spearhead of the “anti-colonial 

movement,” thus obfuscating Russia’s imperialist role at the time of a brutal, expansionist war: 

“deep down, the Western elites have remained the same colonisers. They discriminate 

and divide peoples into the top tier and the rest…While we – we are proud that 

in the 20th century our country led the anti-colonial movement” (Putin 2022d). It is this type of 

reasoning that also paves the way for a harsh language of vilifying all forces that do not 

recognize Russia in this role. They get labelled as either ‘Russophobes’ or ‘Nazis.’ Both terms 

have historical roots. The term Russophobia was already widespread around the time of the 

nineteenth-century Crimean War (Figes 2010). Fighting Nazism has been mythologized as 

Russia’s historic mission in a selective reading of history and a reductionist claim that the 

victory over Nazism was an exclusive Russian achievement. 

The idea that Russia ‘naturally’ extends beyond the current borders of the Russian Federation 

is traditionally intertwined with the concept of derzhavnost, a concept that translates the idea 

of ‘greatpowerness’ but with the underlying assumption of destiny. According to Legvold, 

derzhavnost “has a meaning all its own, one missing from the English language, simply because 

the phenomenon is missing. Only the Russians in moments of distress revert to an affectation 

of great-power standing—that is, to asserting their natural right to the role and influence of a 

great power whether they have the wherewithal or not” (Legvold 2007, 114) Russia is thus 

entitled to ‘greatpowerness’ and this has always been central to its self-identity. 

The idea that Russia is bigger than the current Russian Federation has been present in its foreign 

policy ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was, most visibly, translated into the 

concept of russkiy mir (Russian world), grasping the meaning of a Russian-speaking diaspora 

existing outside the Federation’s borders. However, the way the concept was used politically 



20              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

has evolved significantly over time. Suslov (2018) argues that the concept has evolved from a 

de-territorialized concept in the 1990s to more geopolitical interpretations. As of 2009, the 

“Russian world” was equated with the idea of an “autonomous, expanding state-civilization’” 

(Suslov 2018, 346), forming an alternative to the West and reflecting irridentist claims. 

Already prior to the Ukraine crisis, there is thus both a deeply-rooted idea of Russia’s destiny 

to ‘greatpowerness’ and an evolution to a more territorial interpretation of greater Russia. How 

this developed into the decision for territorial expansion through war can arguably be explained 

by policy failure and a sense of frustration over the (perceived) lack of recognition of Russia as 

a great power. The next section will zoom in on this evolution, in particular, the escalation of 

the Kremlin’s policy towards Ukraine as a result of relative policy failure and a radicalization 

of its identity thinking. This represents the process factor, the dynamic element that helps to 

explain why the invasion happened in 2022. 

 

Process Factors: Radicalization and Policy Failure 

What the world witnessed between early 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 

was a radicalization of great power imaginaries along the nexus of geopolitical and identity 

arguments. Without claiming to offer an exhaustive explanation, this paper argues that this 

radicalization happened along three lines.  

The first line is constituted by the way the Ukraine crisis was perceived by Russia’s leaders in 

2014.  

The Ukraine conflict [of 2014] has undoubtedly been pivotal. It threw into 

question Russia’s self-understanding as a great European power and smashed to 

smithereens the two main pillars of the Kremlin’s long-term strategy: 

maintaining good working relations with Europe, especially with Germany and 

France, and promoting the ‘Eurasian integration’ of former Soviet lands. 

(Torbakov 2021)  

The developments in Ukraine in February 2014 radicalized the Kremlin’s reasoning, rooted in 

a blend of geopolitics (Russia’s entitlement to great power status) and identity thinking (Russia 

being ‘by nature’ larger than the borders of the Russian Federation). Ukraine drifting away from 

the ‘Russian world’ was perceived as a ‘loss’ of Ukraine to the West, causing not simply 

geostrategic concerns but an “existential crisis” (Youngs 2017). According to Freire, Ukraine 

“ended up reflecting Russia’s anxiety over its own identity-building, contributing to ontological 

insecurity. Russia was again losing a part of the self, by losing Ukraine” (Freire 2020, 13). 

Earlier mentioned ideas of Russia’s loneliness, detached from part of its own self, got a new 

boost after the 2014 Ukraine crisis, leading to widespread debates on Russia’s identity 

(Torbakov 2019). It was echoed powerfully in the words of Vladislav Surkov, former advisor 

to Putin, who saw the Ukraine crisis as “the end of Russia’s epic journey to the West” and a 

return to “one hundred (two hundred? three hundred?) years of geopolitical solitude” (Surkov 

2018). These debates fostered a revival of the concepts of ‘greater’ and ‘historical’ Russia, 

leading to expansionist and irridentist positions (Akopov 2020, 295). 

The second line of radicalization was in the policy field. Russia redesigned its foreign policy 

vis-à-vis Ukraine in the wake of the events of early 2014. Perceiving the developments as a 

Western take-over of Ukraine, the Kremlin mainly focused on undermining Western control in 

Ukraine, destabilizing the country by provoking war in the Donbas, and annexing Crimea. 

Russia tried to keep a foot in the door, for which the Minsk II agreement was to serve as a 



21              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

vehicle.6 Based on the idea of far-reaching autonomy for the Donbas, Moscow would de facto 

maintain a degree of veto power in Ukraine’s policy. In other words, its strategy was largely 

based on “negative compulsory power” aimed at “preventing effective control by and to the 

advantage of the West,” making Ukraine a liability for its Western partners rather than a benefit 

(Casier 2018, 103). This strategy was not very successful, partly because the Minsk II 

agreement was not implemented, and the military effort in the Donbas ended up in a stalemate. 

Moreover, Moscow’s policy lacked coherence and clear long-term objectives beyond 

destabilization. The Ukraine policy was scattered over different decision-making bodies and 

largely ineffective (Watling and Reynolds 2022). An attempt at centralization was undertaken 

when the responsibility for Moscow’s Ukraine policy shifted from Vladislav Surkov to Dmitry 

Kozak on January 25, 2020 (Hurak and D’Anieri 2022, 121; Watling and Reynolds 2022, 6-7). 

Despite this change, it remained unclear what the permanent solution for the ‘existential’ 

Ukraine ‘problem’ would be. Watling and Reynolds (2022) argue that consecutive failures in 

Russia’s Ukraine policy led to a radicalization of policy scenarios, driven by trial-and-error 

rather than a coherent set of strategic goals. Next to annexing Crimea and fuelling a war in the 

Donbas, the Kremlin tried a variety of tactics to put pressure on Ukraine: economic coercion, 

exploiting energy dependence, ‘passportization’ in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s 

Republics, the naval blockade of the Kerch strait, religious influence, support for pro-Russian 

politicians, intelligence operations, attempts at toppling the regime, and troop mobilization 

along the border in 2021 (Hurak and D’Anieri 2022; Watling and Reynolds 2022). All these 

tactics delivered few results. Ukraine was not won back but only further alienated from Russia. 

Eventually, this pushed the Kremlin to a scenario of recognition of the People’s Republics of 

Donetsk and Luhansk on February 21, 2022, followed swiftly by a military invasion on the 24th. 

With this change, Russia abandoned a strategy of using relatively limited means to resort to 

maximal effects, as it had done by taking over Crimea by stealth or denying its role in the 

Donbas war. It now opted for brutal and massive warfare, aimed at territorial expansion.  

Finally, the third line of radicalization was in the reversal of the geopolitics-identity argument. 

Back in 2003, Putin stated that “such a country as Russia can only survive and develop within 

the existing borders if it stays as a great power. During all of its times of weakness…Russia 

was invariably confronted with the threat of disintegration” (Putin quoted in Tsygankov 2005, 

132). ‘Greatpowerness’ was thus presented as a condition for Russia’s survival and 

development within its given borders (Tsygankov 2005). The argument was not that Russia had 

to expand in order to be a great power. In his early years as president, Putin explicitly rejected 

imperial ambitions (Legvold 2007; Tsygankov 2005).7 The argument was that only as a great 

power Russia can continue to exist and flourish within its current borders; only as a great power 

can disintegration be prevented. This argument was radically reversed in the run-up to the 

invasion of Ukraine. Perceiving that it was withheld its recognition as a ‘great power’ and that 

its rise to ‘greatpowerness’ was hampered by the West (Krickovic 2017), Russia changed course 

and opted for territorial expansion as an alternative way to establish itself as a great power. In 

the mindset of the Kremlin, Russia could only be great Russia if it constituted a greater Russia. 

It needs to be underlined that there is no objectivity or geopolitical necessity in this. Rather, it 

echoes a deeply rooted way of thinking that connects Russia’s great power status with territorial 

expansion.  

 
6 The Minsk II agreement was signed in February 2015 seeking to put an end the war in Eastern Ukraine. It was built on the 

idea of the restoration of the state border between Ukraine and Russia in the conflict zone and autonomy for the Donetsk and 

Luhansk districts. The latter would have allowed Russia to exert significant influence in Ukrainian politics. 
7 The concept of derzhavnost was not understood by Putin in his early years as president to mean imperial ambitions but 

rather “economic revitalisation” (Legvold 2007, 116). 

 



22              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

This equation between Russia’s great power status and the size of the territory can be explained 

in different ways. In one interpretation, it is simply historical continuity, with Moscow 

inevitably returning to an old tradition of connecting strong statehood with territorial expansion. 

Legvold, for example, stated: “More than usual, Russia, while amid the upheaval, sinks back 

into a tortured quest to define its very identity, one manifestation of which is an ostentatious 

preoccupation with its great-power standing (or derzhavnost) and the other, a sharpened version 

of its permanently vexed relationship to the West” (Legvold 2007, 92). This lines up with the 

continuity thesis, which assumes that the essence of Russian foreign policy does not change 

over time, as its national interests remain constant, resulting in a return to policies of anti-

Westernism and expansionism. Self-evidently, a thesis like this leaves a lot to be explained in 

terms of variation in Russia’s foreign policy and protracted periods of time whereby these 

hallmarks were not valid. When considered as the only explanation for today’s war against 

Ukraine, the argument risks becoming historically determinist. 

An alternative explanation takes into account the process dynamics. Russia’s current 

expansionist policy is then not an inevitable return to the traps of the past but the outcome of 

domestic and international processes that resuscitate this way of thinking. It is within these 

dynamics that the radicalization of territorial, irridentist thinking about Ukraine and the 

escalation of policy options can be situated. This is not to say that historical factors do not 

matter. They do so strongly, as images of Russian derzhavnost and empire feed and propel this 

way of thinking. As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, it is the fact that Russia has never 

come to terms with its own imperial past that prevents it from breaking these dynamics of 

radicalization.  

 

The Significance of the Geopolitics-Identity Nexus for the War 

Russia’s war against Ukraine is the biggest interstate war in Europe since the Second World 

War, and its human toll is already an unspeakable tragedy. On the basis of the above, there are 

reasons to assume that—in the absence of major game changers—the war will be fought till the 

end, whatever exactly this may mean in practice. For Ukraine, accepting any peace deal with 

territorial concessions is hard to imagine. The belief prevails in Kyiv that any peace deal will 

be temporary and that Russia will be back one day – precisely because of the geopolitics-

identity nexus that guides its foreign policy thinking. After all, Ukraine had Russian guarantees 

for its territorial integrity through the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 – guarantees that proved 

worthless with the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The brutal invasion of February 2022 took 

away any doubts about the Kremlin’s intentions and readiness to use massive force and 

destruction to achieve territorial expansion. For Russia, withdrawal is equally hard to imagine, 

not just because it means losing face, but because it would threaten the survival of the regime 

itself. Moscow has annexed four territories of Ukraine in September 2022 that it now considers 

to be an integral part of the Russian Federation, despite the fact that it does not even fully control 

them at the time of writing. 

As argued above, this territorial expansion into Ukraine is disconnected from the security 

concerns Russia claimed vocally and escalated in its rhetoric throughout 2021. The war 

provoked the total collapse of what was left of the post-Cold War security order (Alcaro 2022; 

Casier 2022). Most importantly, with the invasion of Ukraine, Russia went one step further in 

breaking a major taboo, the linchpin of the European post-World War II security order: the 

inviolability of borders. The lesson learnt from two destructive world wars was that territorial 

expansion by force poses the biggest threat to security and easily spills over into uncontrollable 

war. The principle of the inviolability of borders is one of the most fundamental principles of 



23              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

international law. It obtained a central place in the UN Charter and was at the heart of the 1975 

Helsinki Final Act. The war has turned Russia into the biggest security threat in Europe, and as 

a result, all previous discussions about the legitimacy of Moscow’s security concerns are futile 

and bygone. The war has redrawn the European security landscape. There is a united 

transatlantic front that has imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia and has massively 

delivered increasingly heavy arms to Ukraine. The EU has upgraded its security role. It has 

delivered EUR 5.6 billion in military assistance to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility 

(Council of the EU 2023). Moreover, it set up the unparalleled European Union Military 

Assistance Mission for Ukraine (EUMAM), aimed at strengthening the capacity of the 

Ukrainian armed forces through training (EEAS 2022). In a way that was hard to imagine before 

the invasion, EU countries have largely cut themselves off from Russian natural gas, with the 

import now being around one-fifth of what it was the previous year (Zachmann, Sgaravatti, and 

McWilliams 2023) and oil imports from Russia (except oil transported by pipeline) being 

phased out by the end of 2022. Equally important, the EU granted Ukraine candidate member 

status. Despite the fact that this will only be the beginning of a long accession process and that 

huge obstacles have to be overcome, the symbolic significance of this can hardly be 

overestimated. In a context in which the Kremlin denies Ukraine the right to sovereign 

statehood, this offers a forceful recognition of its statehood. Moreover, it indicates a change in 

the EU’s strategy away from its policy of association and privileged relations under the Eastern 

Partnership towards a policy of enlargement for the region. In light of Trenin’s argument above, 

where he claims Russia’s real concern is that countries slip out of Russia’s geocultural sphere, 

offering Ukraine the prospect of accession to the EU is a most significant step. 

Complementary to the argument above that the war has drastically aggravated the security 

situation Moscow has expressed concern about, this means that Russia will also find it harder 

to maintain its geocultural sphere and the influence that comes with it. Post-war Ukraine will 

likely be firmly anchored in the West. While it is far too early for conclusions, this effect will 

probably not be limited to Ukraine but may leave a deep imprint on Moscow’s relations with 

its traditional partners within the Eurasian Economic Union and within the Collective Security 

Treaty Organisation. Without a change of spirit and regime, this loss of influence will be hard 

to digest in Russia. 

 

Conclusion 

It is important to be careful not to end up living in a ‘defactualised world’ because of the love 

for theories (Arendt 1972, 36). Russia’s war against Ukraine presents a test for International 

Relations theories, which are too easily used as a universally applicable framework to give a 

certain interpretation of the war. Instead, it is necessary to understand the complexity and test 

the validity of theoretical assumptions against the reality of the current war, including domestic 

particularities.  

Against this background, this paper has argued that Russia’s decision to launch a large-scale 

war against Ukraine is not the result of escalating tensions with the West, whereby Russian 

security concerns prompt it to act. It has introduced the idea of a geopolitics-identity nexus that 

is crucial to understanding the Kremlin’s decision to go to war. This nexus suggests that in the 

Kremlin’s worldview, Russia’s sense of entitlement to ‘greatpowerness’ got anew entangled 

with its self-identity, whereby the Russian lands extend beyond the borders of the Russian 

Federation. The imaginary that informed the decision embodies a ‘geocultural’ sphere, a 

‘civilization’ of its own that comes with a geographic notion that cannot be reduced to the 



24              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

borders of 1991. In other words, in the Kremlin’s worldview, Russia can only be a great power 

if it also exists as greater Russia. 

While this worldview is not alien to Russia’s thinking throughout history, it was argued that 

different process factors have led the Russian leadership to fill in this nexus radically. Three 

elements of change were indicated: a radicalization of the view of Ukraine as Russian lands, 

prompted by the feeling of an existential crisis when tensions over Ukraine escalated in 2014; 

an escalation of policy options resulting from consecutive failures in Russia’s Ukraine policy; 

and a reversal of the argument that Russia has to be a great power to exist within its 1991 

borders into an argument that Russia has to expand its territory to be a great power. These 

elements do not pretend to give a complete or exhaustive explanation for the Kremlin’s decision 

to wage war, but they form essential components to understand why it did. 

  



25              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

REFERENCES 

Akopov, Sergei. 2020. “Russia’s ‘Fortresses of Solitude’: Social Imaginaries of Loneliness 

after the Fall of the USSR.” Social Science Information 59 (2): 288-309. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/053901842092596.  

Alcaro, Riccardo. 2022. “Europe’s Post-Cold War Order is No More.” IAI Commentaries 22 

(8): 1-6. https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaicom2208.pdf. 

Arendt, Hannah. 1972. Crisis of the Republic. New York: Hardcourt Brace Jovanovich. 

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 1997. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic 

Imperatives. New York: Basic Books. 

Casier, Tom. 2018. “The Different Faces of Power in European Union – Russia Relations.”  

Cooperation and Conflict 53 (1): 101-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836717729179. 

———. 2022. “Russia’s War in Ukraine. A Watershed for Europe.” Nação e Defesa, no. 162,  

71-89. https://www.idn.gov.pt/pt/publicacoes/nacao/Documents/NeD162/

Tom%20Casier.pdf. 

Council of the European Union. 2023. “Ukraine: Council Agrees on Further Military Support 

under the European Peace Facility.”  Accessed February 10, 2023. 

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/02/02/ukraine-council-

agrees-on-further-military-support-under-the-european-peace-facility/.  

European External Action Service (EEAS).  2022. European Union Military Assistance Mission 

Ukraine. Accessed February 10, 2023. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/

files/documents/2023-EUMAMUkraine.pdf.  

Figes, Orlando. 2010. Crimea: The Last Crusade. London: Penguin. 

Freire, Maria Raquel.  2020. EU and Russia Competing Projects in the Neighbourhood: An 

Ontological Security Approach. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 63 (1): 1-18.  

https://www.scielo.br/j/rbpi/a/JcT5x3BTDHVHpTqKCcDnrtf/?lang=en. 

———. 2019. The Quest for Status: How the Interplay of Power, Ideas, and Regime Security 

Shapes Russia’s Policy in the Post-Soviet Space. International Politics 56 (6): 795-809.  

https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-018-0164-y. 

Götz, Elias, and Jørgen Staun. 2022. “Why Russia Attacked Ukraine: Strategic Culture and 

Radicalized Narratives.” Contemporary Security Policy 43 (3): 482-497. 

https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2022.2082633. 

Hurak, Ihor, and Paul D’Anieri. 2022. “The Evolution of Russian Political Tactics in 

Ukraine.” Problems of Post-Communism 69 (2): 121-132. https://doi.org/10.1080/

10758216.2020.1819162. 

Johannesson, Jokull, and David Clowes. 2022. “Energy Resources and Markets – Perspectives 

on the Russia–Ukraine War.” European Review 30 (1): 4-23. https://doi.org/

10.1017/S1062798720001040. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/053901842092596
https://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iaicom2208.pdf
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/02/02/ukraine-council-agrees-on-further-military-support-under-the-european-peace-facility/
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/02/02/ukraine-council-agrees-on-further-military-support-under-the-european-peace-facility/
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2023-EUMAMUkraine.pdf
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/2023-EUMAMUkraine.pdf
https://www.scielo.br/j/rbpi/a/JcT5x3BTDHVHpTqKCcDnrtf/?lang=en


26              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

Katzenstein, Peter, and Lucia Seybert. 2018. “Protean Power and Uncertainty: Exploring the 

Unexpected in World Politics.” International Studies Quarterly 62 (1): 80-93. 

https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx092.  

Krickovic, Andrej. 2017. “The Symbiotic China-Russia Partnership: Cautious Riser and 

Desperate Challenger.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 10 (3): 299-329. 

https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/pox011. 

Legvold, Robert. 2007. “Russian Foreign Policy during Periods of Great State Transformation.” 

In Russian Foreign Policy in the 21st Century & the Shadow of the Past, edited by Robert 

Legvold, 77-143. New York: Columbia University Press. 

Lieven, Dominic. 2002. Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals. New Haven: Yale 

University Press. 

Mälksoo, Maria. 2022. “The Postcolonial Moment in Russia’s War Against Ukraine.” Journal 

of Genocide Research. Forum: Russia's War on Ukraine, 1-11. https://doi.org/

10.1080/14623528.2022.2074947.  

Mearsheimer, John J. 2014. “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions 

That Provoked Putin.” Foreign Affairs 93 (5): 77–89. http://www.jstor.org/stable/

24483306.  

———. 2022. “John Mearsheimer On Who Gains The Most From The Ukraine-Russia War & 

What Could End Putin's Assault.” CRUX. Accessed February 10, 2023. YouTube video, 

23:16. https://youtu.be/XgiZXgYzI84.  

Miskimmon, Alister, and Ben O’Loughlin. 2017. “Russia’s Narratives of Global Order: Great 

Power Legacies in a Polycentric World.” Politics and Governance 5 (3): 111-120.  

https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v5i3.1017. 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 2008. “Bucharest Summit Declaration. Issued by 

the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic 

Council in Bucharest on 3 April 2008.” Press release (2008) 049. Accessed February 10, 

2023. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm. 

Putin, Vladimir. 2021a. “Article by Vladimir Putin ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians 

and Ukrainians.’” July 12, 2021. Accessed February 10, 2023. 

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181  

———. 2021b. “Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly.” Manezh Central Exhibition 

Hall, Moscow, Russia, April 21, 2021. Accessed February 10, 2023. 

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65418.   

———. 2022a. “Address by the President of the Russian Federation.”  February 21, 2022. 

Accessed February 10, 2023. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828.  

———. 2022b. “Address by the President of the Russian Federation.”  February 24, 2022. 

Accessed February 10, 2023. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843. 

https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqx092
https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2022.2074947
https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2022.2074947
http://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306
http://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306
https://youtu.be/XgiZXgYzI84
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/65418
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67828
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67843


27              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

———. 2022c. “Putin Compares Himself to Peter the Great in Russian Territorial Push.”  

Guardian News. Accessed February 10, 2023. YouTube, 1:09. 

https://youtu.be/N2sfJjl7_Zk. 

———. 2022d. “Signing of Treaties on Accession of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics 

and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions to Russia.”. Accessed February 10, 2023. 

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69465. 

Shlapentokh, Dmitry. 2021. “Putin and Ukraine: Power and the Construction of History.”  New 

Zealand International Review 47 (3): 6-9. link.gale.com/apps/doc/A704090490/

AONE?u=ocul_carleton&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=ec72a574.  

Smith, Hanna. 2014. “Russian Greatpowerness: Foreign Policy, the Two Chechen Wars and 

International Organisations.” PhD Dissertation. University of Helsinki.  

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33724422.pdf . 

Stubb, Alexander. 2022. “Alex Stubb on Why Mearsheimer Is Wrong about the War in 

Ukraine.” Accessed February 10, 2023. STG Series. Accessed February 10, 2023. 

YouTube, 22:12. https://youtu.be/vlB-pRqdyBg.  

Surkov, Vladislav. 2018. “Odinochestvo polukrovki (14+)” [The Loneliness of a Half-Breed 

(14+)]. Rossiya v global’noy politike. Accessed October 3, 2022. 

http://www.globalaffairs.ru/global-processes/Odinochestvo-polukrovki-14-19477. 

Suslov, Mikhail. 2018. “‘Russian World’ Concept: Post-Soviet Geopolitical Ideology and the 

Logic of ‘Spheres of Influence.’” Geopolitics 23 (2): 330-353.  

https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2017.1407921. 

Torbakov, Igor. 2019. “‘Middle Continent’ or ‘Island Russia’: Eurasianist Legacy and Vadim 

Tsymburskii’s Revisionist Geopolitics.” In Cultural and Political Imaginaries in Putin’s 

Russia, edited by Niklas Bernsand, and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa , 37-62.  Leiden: Brill. 

———. 2021. “Towards ‘Island Russia.’” Eurozine, May 14, 2021. Accessed February 10, 

2023. https://www.eurozine.com/towards-island-russia/. 

Trenin, Dmitri. 2022. “Are We on the Brink of War? An Interview with Dmitri Trenin.” 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 29, 2022. Accessed February 10, 

2023. https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86304. 

Tsygankov, Andrei P. 2017. “Towards a New Strategy of Civilisation Concentration. 

Civilizational Geopolitics at the Turn of an Era.”  Russia in Global Affairs, June 6, 2017. 

Accessed February 10, 2023. https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Towards-a-New-

Strategy-of-Civilizational-Concentration-18758. 

———. 2005. “Vladimir Putin's Vision of Russia as a Normal Great Power.” Post-Soviet 

Affairs 21 (2): 132-158.  https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199336203.003.0011.  

Watling, Jack, and Reynolds, Nick. 2022. “The Plot to Destroy Ukraine.” Royal United Services 

Institute (RUSI), February 15, 2022. https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202202-ukraine-

web.pdf.  

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69465
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33724422.pdf
https://youtu.be/vlB-pRqdyBg
http://www.globalaffairs.ru/global-processes/Odinochestvo-polukrovki-14-19477
https://www.eurozine.com/towards-island-russia/
https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/86304
https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Towards-a-New-Strategy-of-Civilizational-Concentration-18758
https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Towards-a-New-Strategy-of-Civilizational-Concentration-18758
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/‌9780199336203.003.0011
https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202202-ukraine-web.pdf
https://static.rusi.org/special-report-202202-ukraine-web.pdf


28              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

Youngs, Richard. 2017. Europe’s Eastern Crisis. The Geopolitics of Asymmetry. Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press. 

Yudin, Greg. 2022. “The Neoliberal Roots of Putin’s War.” Emancipations: A Journal of 

Critical Social Analysis 1 (4): 1-13. https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cgi/

viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=emancipations.  

Zachmann, Georg, Giovanni Sgaravatti, and Ben McWilliams. 2021. “European Natural Gas 

Imports.” Bruegel. Accessed February 10, 2023. https://www.bruegel.org/publications/

datasets/european-natural-gas-imports/ . 

  

https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=emancipations
https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1041&context=emancipations
https://www.bruegel.org/publications/datasets/european-natural-gas-imports/
https://www.bruegel.org/publications/datasets/european-natural-gas-imports/


29              Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies, 16 (2)2023: 14-29 

ISSN 2562-8429 

 

 

Published by the Centre for European Studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada 

Available online at: https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/CJERS/index 

 

The Canadian Journal of European and Russian Studies (CJERS – formerly Review of 

European and Russian Affairs) is an open-access electronic academic peer-reviewed journal: 

articles are subject to double-blind peer-review. Topics relate to the European Union, its 

Member States, the former Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern Europe. The journal is 

published by the Centre for European Studies, an associated unit of the Institute of European, 

Russian and Eurasian Studies at Carleton University. 

CJERS aims to provide an accessible forum for the promotion and dissemination of high quality 

research and scholarship.  

 

Contact: 

Carleton University 

The Centre for European Studies 

1103 Dunton Tower 

1125 Colonel By Drive 

Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 

Canada 

E-mail: CJERS@carleton.ca 

Creative Commons License 

 

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 

This Working Paper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No 

Derivs 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).  

 

Articles appearing in this publication may be freely quoted and reproduced, provided the source 

is acknowledged. No use of this publication may be made for resale or other commercial 

purposes. 

ISSN: 2562-8429 

© 2019 The Author(s) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://ojs.library.carleton.ca/index.php/CJERS/index
mailto:CJERS@carleton.ca
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

