The article studies the history and the current stage of Russia’s aggression to-wards countries with lower military potential. The collapse of the post-war system of international relations and collective security has become apparent: the aggression of Russia against Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine has testified to the fact that there are no longer any tools to protect countries subjected to discrimination from super powers.
Today discrimination affects not only people or social groups, but also some countries.
Such countries are not capable of pursuing an independent policy as to major centres of international power they have to deal with. Peculiar to these countries are uncompetitive economy, low quality of life and undeveloped civil society, they hence become a target for “vital interests”, namely bidding by so-called super powers.
“Giants” are attracted by the geographical location of a possible “victim”, access to the sea, transit facilities, natural resources, especially energy, low-cost labour, etc. It is often that “discriminated” countries become grounds for ignition of burning or frozen conflicts provoked by powerful neighbours’ influence, or are exposed to open aggression and become subject to occupation or hybrid war.
This has all started after the Second World War, when super powers of the USSR and China, on the one hand, and the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and others, on the other, have made Korea fall into two states. In addition, there was subsequently a division of Germany, the Caribbean crisis…However, such conflicts then were not that wide-ranging, since the post-war collective security system was quite effective.
Things, though, have changed dramatically in recent decades. One of the largest global players − Russia – has decisively begun to create around itself a buffer zone formed of countries, where it fuels frozen conflicts and in such a way keeps them under the radar and hinders their integration into the Western world.
Initially, Russia ignited a conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, supporting Armenia and assisting it to invade a considerable part of the territory in Azerbaijan, and then initiated the war in Transnistria by virtually occupying part of Moldova’s territory and asserting itself there on the pretext of deploying a peacekeeping mission. Later, there was a war in Abkhazia and then − in South Ossetia aiming to detach part of Georgia’s territory. And lastly, the turn of Ukraine has come… Regrettably, Ukraine is a typical and another example of a country that has fallen victim of multifaceted interests of the leading global players − Russia, the United States and the EU, and has faced all possible forms of discrimination.
Keywords: war in eastern Ukraine, military aggression, geopolitics, conflicts, buffer zones.
How successful was Joseph Stalin in establishing Soviet Union as a superpower?