The EU Response To The Ukrainian Crisis: Testing The Union’S Comprehensive Approach To Peacebuilding

The Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine, followed by the Russian annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in Eastern Ukraine, posed a number of important challenges to the world community. First, Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity tends to undermine the international consensus on refraining from the use of force directed at the territorial integrity and political independence of other states as enshrined in the UN Charter. While this consensus is considered to have signiicantly contributed to the diminishment of the number of interstate wars in the second half of the 20th century, its breach is inevitably associated with multiple spillovers. Second, the lack of effective policy and legal means to respond to Russia’s ‘hybrid war’ strategy testiies to crucial drawbacks in the modern design of international humanitarian law. Third, the revival of force as a crucial factor in international relations is associated with the decreasing importance of liberal values that serve as a crucial foundation of the modern international system as well as of the EU.