Russia and Western states have long clashed over the nature of international society and the desirability of a liberal rule-based international order. Relations plunged with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which flouted a core prohibition of the United Nations Charter system against territorial expansion by force. Putin’s renewed all-out invasion of Ukraine now appears openly revanchist. This lecture assesses the implications for international order at large and the operation of international law, including international humanitarian law, around the conflict. It dissects the peculiar logic and false justifications Putin offers for Russia’s aggression.
Does he really believe Russia occupies some common civilizational and territorial space with Ukraine, justifying the subjugation of Ukraine to return ‘historic Russian regions’? Or is this cynical cover for strategic ends aimed at the mobilisation of domestic support? With no end to the war in sight, the lecture also questions what remains of the post-Cold war territorial settlement in Europe and whether an eventual negotiated settlement of the war is conceivable under the current Russian leadership.
Meet our speaker and chair
Roy Allison joined the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA) in 2011 from a Readership in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and was Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House from 1993-2005. Professor Allison has broad research interests in the international relations, foreign and security policies of Russia and Eurasia and has directed numerous research projects while traveling extensively through the region.
Federica Bicchi’s current research focuses on contemporary trends in European diplomacy, especially in relation to the digitalisation of diplomacy and developments in European foreign policy cooperation. Her theoretical perspective contributes to the “practice turn” in International Relations.
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