Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands

The great powers remain the primary actors in international relations in the modern world. This is proved by the continuous competition between them for spheres of influence. The great powers possess political and diplomatic, as well as military and economic strength which may cause the rest of the world to take into consideration their interests. This is also true in the case of Ukraine when the crisis of 2013-2014 brought the world to the edge of a new Cold War. On the one hand, Ukraine has an important geopolitical position which gives it the opportunity to maneuver, but on the other, Ukraine has to consider the great powers’ opinions before taking action of its own. It is in Russia’s interest to maintain Ukraine within its sphere of its influence – political, economic and cultural. The European Union, however, is tending to gradually attract Ukraine into its structure through the creation of a political association and free trade area. In the book Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, the author Richard Sakwa examines the causes of present crisis in Ukraine which is centered on the disputed territory of Crimea and the eastern regions of Donbass. Richard Sakwa is Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. He writes books about Russian and Eastern European communist and post-communist politics. He is also the author of The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (1999), Putin: Russia’s Choice (2007), and Russian Politics and Society (2008). In his most recent book, he follows the origins, developments and significance of the conflict from the protests in Kiev until the parliamentary elections of October 2014. He describes the conflict as the result of two interacting processes: an internal conflict over the nature of the Ukrainian state, and an external contest for influence over its future.