Nataliia NECHAIEVA-YURIICHUK^

This article is an attempt to look at the main tendencies of changes provoked by Russian wide-scaled invasion into Ukraine. The author tries to briefly define the influence of war on the main spheres of our life.

Last almost ten years entered into the worlds’ history as the period of Russian–Ukrainian war. In 2014 Russia took an unprecedented step: started hybrid aggression toward Ukraine. Its attempt to conquer Ukraine was the organic part of its national strategy, the main aim of which is to reach geopolitical dominance. If we look back into XXth century history we’ll find out the permanent struggle of the Russian empire in its different political formats (like the USSR or contemporary Russian Federation) for the place under the geopolitical sun. The last years of the USSR’s existence demon-strated the weakness of Moscow. From one side, the created at the beginning of the previous century “hot ethnopolitical points” like Karabakh (Azerbaijan), or Transnistria (Republic of Moldova), or Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region (Georgia) were used for destabilization political situation in different regions of former USSR. From another, even in those complicated and turbulent circumstances Moscow couldn’t keep the soviet system and its position as the one of the main geopolitical players.

After the start of Russian aggression toward Ukraine, the world returned back to the political and military practices of the interwar period. But the political reality was and still is completely different. So, the annexation of Crimea has strong historical parallels with 1938 Anschluss of Austria. Russian intervention in to Ukraine (including the intervention of military troops from the Eastern border in Donetsk and Luhansk oblast’) has a lot in common with the Soviet intervention to Ukraine during the Ukrainian revolution¹.

But in the beginning of the second decade of the XXI century Russia was punished and blamed for what it was doing. Western democracies condemned the Russian aggression toward Ukraine. While “military support for Ukraine was never considered an option, but the West felt it had to do something, so it imposed sanctions”². So, in 2014 the USA and the EU “announced Crimea-related sanctions with visa bans and assets freezes on individuals and companies accused of undermining democracy, misappropriating Ukrainian property, and violating human rights”³. From 2014 till today nearly 1,950 individuals and entities were sanctioned by the EU⁴. Between them are different types: from economics to bans on media outlets. After the start of a wide-scaled invasion of Ukraine the EU leaders organized a special summit where they agreed on further sanctions against Russia. The main result was the condemning unprecedented Russian “military aggression against Ukraine” and expression of “full unity with international partners and full solidarity with Ukraine and its people”⁵.

If we analyze the sanction policy of the EU toward Russia⁶ for example, we’ll see the strong tendency to strengthen it from 2014. It demonstrates the growing awareness of the threat from Russia by Ukraine’s Western partners. According to the author, the pace of this process leaves much to be desired, but today we have a powerful anti-Putin coalition which is the main step forward for the further collapse of Russia as the last classical empire in the world. The Russian war against Ukraine revealed the extreme importance of sanctioned economic pressure as one of the instruments of international confrontation.

The introduced sanctions policy did not produce the expected results. As far as the expert of the American analytical center Atlantic Council M. Nikoladze told at the end of 2023, it was because of “gaps in their application, Moscow’s efforts and the transfer of the Russian economy to military rails”⁷. It is necessary to add that one of the contemporary tendencies in the social-economic sphere is the active accumu-lation of experience in sanctions evasion practice. Contemporary Russia is doing it rather well since 2014 by using different states and practices on the land and at the sea. We are the witnesses of the formatting of the Russian “closed ecosystem of survival”. It is building on at least three levels. The first level, or the first circle of countries, are members of the EAC and the Customs Union; the second level, regional partners of Russia that are not part of a single space with it, but playing an important transit role. To the third level the economic giants who sponsor the war and ensure that Russian raw materials, after processing, reach Western markets, belong⁸. This practice is allowing Russia to extend the time of its imperial existence first of all. And of course it is prolonging the war against Ukraine. But also it allows other autocracies to accumulate experience in evading sanctions and use it in their further activities (for instance, China in case of open war against Taiwan etc.).

The Russian-Ukrainian war led to the rapidly growing number of refugees and migrants, especially in the EU member-states, the USA, Canada, Great Britain and other states all over the world. More than 4,1 million Ukrainian refugees were fixed in European countries in December, 2023. Most of them are registered in Germany and Poland⁹. But also in 2023 the number of refugees from Russia to other states was growing. It was recorded by Finland for example and can be considered as a conscious policy of the Russian Federation aimed at destabilizing the situation in Western democracies¹⁰. For these years states that accepted refugees from the war in Ukraine made adjustments to their own migration policies. The “new” refugees got not only financial and social assistance, but also real perspectives of individual integration into the host communities. For our opinion, the new migration reality needs special attention free from pre-war stereotypes and expectations, especially from politicians. I mean last the latest statements from the Ukrainian side regarding the need to return refugees¹¹.

The refugee policy has been changed up to the new realty very fast. And this proves the high level of adaptability of modern democratic systems to today’s challenges. It opens the future perspectives of creation wide of open Europe, of course after the collapse of contemporary Russian imperialism.

The Russian aggression toward Ukraine can be considered as the classical modern war which is providing at least at three levels: information, military and, of course, political. The information war against Ukraine is provided at the strategic, operational and tactical levels, and includes different mechanisms of influence on opposite side¹². From 2014 the USA, the EU member-states felt the influence of Russian non-sanctioned intervention into information systems, election process etc. The level of Russian propaganda and the scale of disinformation campaigns exceeded any forecasts of experts. It became a part of Russian official policy and is provided at the level of international organizations like the Security Council of the UN etc. The usage of Artificial Intellect in the [dis]information politics of the RF is visible not only for media experts¹³. This is part of the Kremlin’s strategy of achieving geopolitical su-premacy. And the war in Ukraine made it evident for the world. An indirect consequence of the [dis]information politics of Moscow is the growing attention to the security of the informational systems, media literacy and critical thinking of the societies in democratic states. And the development of control instruments for the information activity in autocracies with the further punishment for the violators¹⁴.

Russian wide-scaled invasion in Ukraine confirmed that any war is the part of human being and its nature remains the same as it was thousands of years ago. The crucial point for the victory in any war is the ability of the society to mobilize. And Ukrainian society proved that it works. The mobilization of Ukrainians ruined Russian blitzkriegs plans and earned support from the other states in its independence war. Also there is still a necessity in traditional artillery, especially in the battles for the territories in frontlines. But contemporary war testifies that “modern technologies have made enormous changes in the characteristics of war”¹⁵. The use of the Internet common with “satellite images to see and determine the location of enemy positions from space” made the war in Ukraine essentially transparent. Also, the war proved the superiority of precision weapons over the basic military platforms that have dominated the battlefield for over 100 years¹⁶.

Moreover, there is limited usage of Air Forces in this war: the sky is dangerous for both sides because of systematic usage of precision weapons, air defense systems and drones. If during the first three months of war air forces were used a lot from the Russian side, today the war in Ukraine became the artillery war. Neither Russians, nor Ukrainians have no any experience to breakthrough of ground air defense. Today both Ukraine and Russia have learned to defend their skies more effectively than in 2022. Although “Russian cruise missiles and drones continue to penetrate targets, and Ukrainian drones find “windows” in air defense and fly deep into Russian territory, it is much more difficult for manned aircraft to do this”¹⁷. We can suppose that future wars will be characterized with more active usage of precision weapons, drones, air defense systems. Moreover air defense systems will be the subject of close attention both in the context of defense and in the context of the need for their elimination during the offensive. The war at the sea is also changing its characteristics. And effective use of drones is one of the examples of these changes.

Prolonged war exhausts the resources of states. And one of the important consequences of it is the weakening of Russia on the geopolitical arena. The evident example: the situation in South Caucasus. Military operation of Azerbaijan in Karabakh led to the cessation of existence of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (officially from January 1, 2024). Till autumn, 2023 Russia was the main guarantor of its existence, but the war in Ukraine determined other priorities for it. And friendship and partnership with Turkey and Azerbaijan is between them. We are not analyzing the Russian policy in Caucasus, but this example certifies changes in world order architecture on the regional level. Also it is necessary to remember turbulence in the Middle East, Global South etc.

Contemporary world is multidimensional and controversial. The new system of challenges and risks is formatting. And the Russian-Ukrainian war became the litmus that revealed the contradictions of modernity, demonstrated the weak links of the modern international security system and encourages the search for new forms of interstate cooperation.

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