ABSTRACT
The 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine marked a turning point for Russian foreign policy, one that reconfigured the nature of Russia’s relationship with its post-Soviet neighbours, as well as with Europe, the United States, and China. Well before American and European observers were lamenting the demise of the so-called liberal international order, Russian analysts were insistent that United States domination of the post-Cold War world was both temporary and damaging to overall security and stability. Russia’s emphasis on maintaining a sphere of influence in Eurasia also contributes to the sensitivity that Moscow has shown toward the expansion of Western influence, and the extension of Western military power, into the post-Soviet space. At least until the war in Ukraine, however, Moscow recognised that it still had much to gain from maintaining a workable relationship with the United States and EU.
