A geoestratégia russa ante a crise ucraniana: o interesse no Mediterrâneo (1992-2022)

Abstract

This work addresses the question of Russian geostrategy following the loss of its hegemony in Eastern Europe after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It also examines the role of the Mediterranean region in Russian foreign policy, focusing on Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Syria. The first preliminary conclusion is that Russia projects its power in the southern Mediterranean as a new zone of influence since NATO’s expansion into Eastern Europe in the post-Cold War. This period marked the transition of the international system to a multipolar structure, which undermined Russian hegemony and rendered the system more unstable and prone to greater occurrences of conflict compared to the relative stability of the bipolar structure during the Cold War. The crisis in Ukraine — spanning from the Orange Revolution in 2004, through the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014, to the war in Ukraine in 2022 — reflects how Russia formulates its strategies in the post-Soviet space in the post-Cold War era, particularly regarding Ukraine and its political shift toward the West, with its interest in integrating the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). To that end, this work presents the interpretations of Realism, primarily the works of Kenneth N. Waltz and John J. Mearsheimer on the international conflicts, and provides a historical analysis of Russia’s role during the Russian Empire (1721-1917) and URSS (1922-1991).