Russia's near abroad strategy in the 21st century: The example of Ukraine

This study examines the factors affecting the near abroad doctrine in historical development, the Primakov doctrine, the Russia-Ukraine war and Russia's relations with its neighbors after the war.The war between Russia and Ukraine is not only affecting these two countries, but also regional and global countries. Depending on how the war ends, its international humanitarian impacts will be quite extensive in the near future. Especially recently, in Crimea and the Donbas regions in eastern Ukraine, the Russian population has outnumbered other ethnic groups.Although there are Ukrainians in the Donbas region, Ukrainians in the Crimean Peninsula and Crimean Turks, the population balance has increased in favor of Russians with each passing year.Following the incidents between pro-Russian and pro-EU Ukrainian citizens in Ukraine, Russia's military intervention has been the focus. The study investigated the Russia-Ukraine crises that occurred after 2014 and the Russian intervention in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 as a result of these crises and the underlying reasons for this. In the current process since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the difficulties that both sides face in achieving major gains against the other, or the fact that neither side is able to achieve a serious advantage over the other, and although they occasionally achieve minor advantages over the other and keep their hopes alive that they will win the war in this context, there is no peace agreement on the horizon.