ABSTRACT
Russia and Ukraine are the very embodiment of processes of transformation. Both are ‘new’ states in the sense that their contemporary standing is a direct product of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As such they have had to face a number of unique challenges, not least of which has been the fundamental task of defining the very orientation and goals of their foreign policies and accommodating themselves to the new international politics of the former Soviet region. Both states, however, have also brought with them preoccupations of longer standing. This is most obviously the case with Russia – a state which has inherited a good deal of the foreign policy concerns of the Soviet Union and which has (much like its Soviet forebear) sought to pursue a multi-regional, even global, policy that is in keeping with its perceived status as a great power.
