ABSTRACT
The consequences of the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 continue to reverberate across the region and beyond. Security relations between, and governance arrangements within, the 15 successor states that were created by this geopolitical ‘big bang’ have not uniformly stabilised into orderly and mutually secure relationships. Unlike most contemporary conflicts globally, the majority in this region are inter-state wars involving regular armed or security forces. Most seriously of all, domestic tensions fuelled by Russia’s poor performance in the war escalated into an armed mutiny by several thousand troops from the Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organisation closely linked to the Kremlin and Russian military intelligence. In the case of the Russia–Ukraine war, the inter-state border was accepted as legitimate by both countries. Indeed, Russia signed many inter-state agreements with Ukraine, as well as the 1994 Budapest Memorandum with the United States and United Kingdom, in which it committed to respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
