ABSTRACT
Russia’s war in Ukraine is not only about Ukraine’s freedom and existence as an independent nation-state, or about human rights and freedom from oppression. At its heart, the war is about the future we are going to live in, about Europe and the European security order. Russian President Vladimir Putin has driven a tank through the common European house that Mikhail Gorbachev envisioned, brutally trampling the cooperative and democratic security order agreed upon in 1990. In its place, he wants to build a new order where might makes right, a tyranny whereby the big and strong do as they please and Russia is restored to what Putin presumes is its rightful place as an empire dominating at least half of Europe.
