The strategic compulsion of offending states to compliment the virtues of international law : Kremlin's Ukraine Policy

Since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, studies on the Kremlin’s foreign policy have reached Cold War levels. According to the dominant majority, composed of realist scholars, the Kremlin had executed an expected move by retaliating against Western expansion toward Ukraine. However, despite the apparent influence of realism on the Kremlin’s Ukraine policy, scholars and policymakers neglected to predict the eagerness of the Russian Federation to avoid damaging the existing international legal system, even while systematically violating it. During the two military offensives against Ukraine in less than a decade, Moscow has put great effort into legitimizing its actions with international law. And when it was unable to do so, the Kremlin has sought to avoid challenging the existing international order by identifying its offensive as a “special military operation.” This thesis aims to show that, despite their proactive policy agendas, powerful states are eager to legitimize their actions with international law, and when they cannot, they do not disregard nor challenge it. By drawing on a diversity of examples from four different case studies in which the United States or the Russian Federation played a major role, this study aims to present the commitment of powerful states to follow and preserve the existing international system, for their long-term interests.Arts, Faculty ofPolitical Science, Department ofGraduat