ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of how an apparent discrepancy between deeds and letter has emerged in Russian international law doctrine and its domestic legal discourses. Although the Russian foreign policy doctrine has put considerable emphasis on the primacy of the fundamental principles of international law, Russia has been depicted as a “non-native speaker” of it. It has often seen the need for distinct international norms and order for the post-Soviet space owing to the tradition of applying a doctrine of “limited sovereignty” in that area. Perhaps the most profound question in this context is whether Russia wants to revise the international legal order in general, or whether it is transitioning to a post-factual world where discrepancies between the rhetoric concerning international norms and legal order and the country’s behavior do not matter.
