The Ukrainian National Church, Religious Diplomacy and the Conflict in Donbas

The article analyses political mobilisation towards the establishment of an independent Ukrainian national church. Ukraine had three Orthodox churches, the largest of which is under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, while the others lacked ecclesiastical legitimacy. On 11 October 2018, in a dramatic decision with geopolitical consequences, the Kyiv Patriarchate received ecclesiastical recognition from the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarchate. Drawing on 16 interviews with key clergy, academics and policy practitioners working on church-state relations in Kyiv, a literature review, and online data from Bulgarian, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian sources, the article argues that the conflict in Donbas has been a key factor in the national and international mobilisation towards autocephaly. This article demonstrates that in Eastern Orthodoxy, churches perform state-like functions in three areas, namely establishing diplomatic channels of communication; mobilising the faithful at national and international levels; and advancing human security discourses on violence, survival and tolerance

Russian-European Relations in the Balkans and Black Sea Region: Great Power Identity and the Idea of Europe

This book provides a detailed analysis of Russia’s ‘great power identity’ and the role of Europe in forming this identity. ‘Great power identity’ implies an expansionist foreign policy, and yet this does not explain all the complexities of the Russian state. For instance, it cannot explain why Russia decided to take over Crimea, but provided only limited support to break-away regions in Eastern Ukraine. Moreover, if Russia is in geo-economic competition with Europe, why has no serious conflict erupted between Moscow and other post-Soviet states which developed closer ties with the EU? Finally, why does Putin maintain relationships with the European countries that imposed tough economic sanctions on Russia? Vsevolod Samokhvalov provides a more nuanced understanding of Russia’s great power identity by drawing on his experience in regional diplomacy and research and applying a constructivist methodology. The book will appeal to students and scholars of international relations, in particular Russian-European relations, Russian foreign policy and Russian studies

On the Edges: Post-Soviet Eurasia and Its Periphery

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2016.1171285The research of Eurasian regionalism mostly focuses on the Eurasian core, e.g. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, which have been pursuing a more exclusive and closer form of integration – Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union. Other countries of the post-Soviet space are often described as post-Soviet ‘escapists’ or ‘isolationists’ and mostly discounted in the analyses of the Eurasian regionalism. The paper looks at six post-Soviet states, who opted out from the Eurasian Economic Union, and analyse their interaction with the EEU. The paper argues that despite tensions in relations with Russia, most of these countries are reluctant to entirely disrupt their economic relations with the post-Soviet Eurasia. The paper argues that six countries of the post-Soviet Eurasian periphery effectively pursue policies of a looser form association with the Eurasian core. This finding allows to argue that Eurasian regionalism, similarly to its European model, consists of the core and outer circle. The outer circle is featured by overlapping regional arrangements and growing presence of external powers and growing number of transit and trade flows linking this Eurasian periphery with the West and Asia

Russia and its shared neighbourhoods: a comparative analysis of Russia-EU and Russia-China relations in the EU's Eastern neighbourhood and Central Asia

This article examines the conditions under which great powers succeed or fail to shape a cooperative security agenda in their shared neighbourhoods. It compares Russia's interactions with the EU and with China in their respective shared neighbourhoods: the EU's Eastern Neighbourhood region and Central Asia. The article applies a synthetic framework. It analyses how the interplay between three factors–ideas, capabilities and circumstantial factors such, as the personalities of leading politicians,–shape the process of interaction between great powers. It starts from a comparison of the images of the two regions in Russia's mind-set because such images provide cognitive lenses through which powers make sense of political developments in shared neighbourhoods. The article then moves to show how change in the balance of power (soft and hard) created enabling conditions for competition/collaboration. Finally, the article shows how specific circumstantial factors led to or shaped the Russian-European conflict. At the same time, similar factors prevented Russian-Chinese conflict in Central Asia. © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Ukraine between Russia and the European Union: Triangle Revisited

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2015.1088513Ukraine has long been considered as a bone of contention between the EU and Russia which could eventually lead to a geographical split of the country. This interpretation, however, fails to explain the dynamic of the Ukrainian revolution and Russian–Ukrainian war. To address the deadlock in understanding the mixed dynamics of the situation in Ukraine, the article argues that the relations in the EU–Ukraine–Russia triangle are affected by the combination of choices that the Ukrainian political class, business elites and broader society make in four major dimensions: internal political practices; economic dimension; a dimension of international politics; and an ideological dimension