Russia and the post-2014 international legal order: revisionism and realpolitik

Russia’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine are viewed by Western governments as a flagrant affront to the ideal of a rule-governed international order. This order depends fundamentally on rules governing the use of force. The wider clash of legal and normative positions over Russia’s neighbourhood between Moscow and Western states has now become acute. It is polarised by Russia’s breach in the post-Cold War territorial settlement, its violation of the basic prohibition against states reverting to wars of territory or the use of force to expand their territorial sphere. This prohibition is the bedrock of the architecture of the modern international law system, which has enabled a more developed system of rules to develop