Baltic Rim Economies 2/2022

Special issue on Ukraine / Crimea

Published on the 28th of April 2022

The fight for the future

“On February 24th 2022 Russia ruthlessly bombed and invaded Ukraine. Russian military encroached into peace and freedom of Ukraine, killing innocent people, destroying cities and threatening the security of the entire civilised world.
They called it a military operation, having fabricated and continuing to fabricate pretexts for such invasion and seizure of our land.
But this is a real, bloody, brutal, cynical war started by a mad dictator, a war criminal putin.”

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko
Member of Parliament

Co-Chair of the Inter-parliamentary group of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on inter-parliamentary relations with the Republic of Finland

Secretary of the Parliamentary Committee for Ukraine’s integration into the EU

Before Putin’s war with bombs, there was a war with disinformation

“In June 2020, the European Parliament decided to combat disinformation by foreign actors and set up a “Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation”, more aptly abbreviated as INGE. 18 months later, the findings of the Committee, in which I was rapporteur for the Greens/EFA Group, proved to be unambiguous: There is an overwhelming lack of awareness in all fibres of society within the EU when it comes to the severity of threat posed by authoritarian regimes and their disinformation attempts. For too long, the EU and its Member States have turned a blind eye to increased attempts of foreign interference in the information space and have underestimated, how impactful threats of disinformation are.”

Viola von Cramon-Taubadel
Member of the European Parliament

Crimea: Eight years later

“The annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 laid the foundation for the current “special military operation in Ukraine”, or rather, aggression against an independent and democratic state. Watching the unfolding tragedy, we must remember this step as the first clear violation, when Russia ceased to comply with universally recognized laws and standards, and brute force played a decisive role.”

Grigory Yavlinsky
Russian United Democratic Party “Yabloko”

Professor
Higher School of Economics
Moscow, Russia

Offshore motive for the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea

“The renewed Russian military invasion of Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022 goes along with the war on the sea. The activity of Russia`s fleet poses a threat not only to Ukraine, but also to other neighboring countries bordering the Black Sea. In particular, this concerns offshore gas exploration projects. Minelaying in the north-western sector of the Black Sea is aimed at blockage of the Ukrainian ports. Another threat is that mines drift towards the Bosphorus through the Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish sectors, where the offshore exploration by investors takes place.”

Mykhailo Gonchar
President
CGS Strategy XXI
Ukraine

Chief Editor
Black Sea Security Journal
Ukraine

Baltic Rim Economies 2/2022 includes the following Expert articles

Valentyn Nalyvaichenko: The fight for the future

Viola von Cramon-Taubadel: Before Putin’s war with bombs, there was a war with disinformation

Grigory Yavlinsky: Crimea: Eight years later

Mykhailo Gonchar: Offshore motive for the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea

Neil Kent: Orthodoxy, the Kremlin and Ukraine

James Sherr: The Putin obsession and the problem of Russia

Steven Pifer: Why Putin went to war against Ukraine

Yana Prymachenko: Ukraine is not Russia vs One Nation: political prose as the prelude to the Russo-Ukrainian War

Eleanor Knott: From annexation to war

Kateryna Ivashchenko-Stadnik: Debunking the constructed war against Ukraine: Evidence from the pre-invasion Crimea and Donbas

Ihor Hurak: “Policy of appeasement” as one of the factors of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine

Evhen Tsybulenko: War of civilizations

Roman Martynovskyy: The logic of barbarism and human rights

Yordan Gunawan: The legitimacy and recognition of Crimea: A conundrum

James Rodgers: Russia and Ukraine: War and media

Victor Liakh & Ilona Khmeleva: Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression: What can civil society representatives do?

Deborah Sanders: The Russian invasion of Ukraine: Implications for the Black Sea

Kristian Åtland: Russia’s maritime expansionism in the Black Sea region

Borys Babin: Legal assessment of Russian ongoing aggression in the Black and Azov Seas

Sajal Kabiraj: Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact on global supply chains

Maksym Palamarchuk: Occupation of Crimea: Strategic consequences

Kestutis Kilinskas: Hybrid warfare: An orientating or misleading concept in analysing Russia’s military actions in Ukraine / in Crimea?

Julia Kazdobina: Push for Crimea’s liberation despite the war

Andrii Ryzhenko: Russian Crimean Bastion and its role in the ongoing invasion in Ukraine

Maksym Kyiak: Crimea will be free

Riana Teifukova: The geopolitical implications of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine

Mehmet Seyfettin Erol: Meanings of Crimean geopolitics in regional-global politics

Oleksandr Sukhodolia: The Ukrainian Crimea and the clash of liberal democracy and autocracy

Dmitry I. Uznarodov: Socio-economic development of the Republic of Crimea in 2018-2020

Yevheniia Horiunova: Social changes in Crimea occupied by Russia

Eskender Bariiev: Violation of the collective rights of the Crimean Tatar people is a crime against humanity

Filiz Tutku Aydın: Crimea, Crimean Tatars and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Natalya Belitser: Crimean Tatars and occupation of Crimea

Veikko Jarmala: Crimean Estonians

Serhii Hromenko: Putin misuses the history of Crimea in the war against Ukraine

Nikita Lomagin: Russia’s historic relations with Crimea

Sergei V. Moshkin: Why did Khrushchev transfer Crimea to Ukraine?

Olena Snigyr: Crimean narratives of Russian historical memory

Elena Kayukova: Fresh water of the Crimean Peninsula

Aleksander Panasiuk & Halyna Zubrytska: Crisis situation of the tourism industry in Crimea

Maria Piechowska: Cultural heritage under threat in Ukraine

Elmira Ablyalimova-Chyihoz & Denys Yashnyi: Colonization through destruction and distortion: the case of the Bakhchisaray Khan’s Palace

Inga Zaksauskiene: Enemies and traitors: The role of Ukraine in the Soviet Union dissolution

Kari Liuhto: A paranoid war with absurd justifications