The Ukraine crisis : A geopolitical power struggle between Russia and the US.

The aim of this thesis is to examine Russia’s and the US behaviors and actions in the Ukraine crisis in order to understand why the conflict resulted in a geopolitical power struggle. Since the current debate is filled with biased information and propaganda, this thesis aims to observe the behaviors and actions from both sides objectively to get a comprehensive understanding of their involvement in the crisis. It is a desk-study since the data is gathered from books and articles. It is qualitative due to the fact that it investigates this particular conflict by using several sources to gain an in-depth knowledge of a two-sided perspective. The method text analysis is used on four chosen articles that will be observed in order to find the underlying reasons of Russia’s and the US ongoing involvement in the crisis. It is an abductive reasoning whereas the theory offensive realism is used as the theoretical lens in order to highlight the most essential information of the chosen articles that will be examined. The three categories diplomacy, economy and military have been applied to outline Russia’s and the US underlying reasons of their behaviors and actions in the Ukraine crisis in order to answer the research questions. The result shows from an offensive realism perspective that Russia and the US are involved in the crisis due to their strategic interest to dominate the Black Sea Region for personal gains. It is shown that both states acted upon self-interest to gain more power and to lesser their rival’s power in order to hinder one another to become a territorial hegemon in the Black Sea Region. It is suggested that the outcome of the Ukraine crisis could have been different without their involvement.