NATO-Russia Relationship after the Annexing of Crimea from Nuclear Weapons Perspective

The aim of this work is to determine the influence of nuclear weapons possession in 1) Russia's foreign policy in the Ukraine crisis, 2) relations between NATO and Russia. For this purpose the work monitors the development of NATO - Russia relations from the Budapest memorandum until present. The work also creates typology of russian signalling activities based on the theoretical basis of the nuclear deterrence conceptions and especially on the models of crisis signalling, which is closely linked to these conceptions. After monitoring these activities the work concludes that Russia is indeed using threats of nuclear weapons employment in the framework of it's attitude towards Ukraine crisis and also the intensity of signalling shows similar development as the relations with NATO