The EU's Changing Strategy towards Russia : The Response to Aggression

Maass, Anna-Sophie (2025) The EU's Changing Strategy towards Russia : The Response to Aggression. In: Europe's World : Policy Paradigms, Strategic Thinking and the Anti-Liberal Challenge. Bristol University Press, Bristol, pp. 168-188. ISBN 9781529243611 (In Press)

Abstract

This chapter examines changes in the EU’s foreign policy towards Russia by assessing their gradually increasing contentions over Ukraine in two phases: First, from the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 until November 2018 when Russia was shelling Ukrainian vessels in the Kerch Strait. Second, since this incident in the Sea of Azov until February 2024. The chapter considers Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the shelling of Ukrainian vessels in the Sea of Azov in 2018, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as critical junctures, demonstrating Russia’s increasing threat towards Ukraine and shaping the EU’s changing policy paradigm towards Moscow since 2014. In line with this book’s main objective, the chapter examines paradigmatic and strategic shifts in the EU’s policy goals and instruments (Hall, 1993) since 2014 in the context of power transition, Russian aggression and the spread of anti-Liberal ideas