The Master's Thesis focuses on the impact of the Ukraine political crisis of 2013 - 2014 on Russia's relations with the CIS countries. The crisis was triggered by Ukrainian government when it suspended plans of closer ties with the European Union, and has since spurred escalating tensions between Russia and Western powers. The tense situation in Ukraine and Russia's policies is one of the central affairs in international relations today and this makes this topic especially actual. The Thesis examines impact of Ukrainian events of 2013-2014 on the Eurasian integration led by Russia. Integration projects in the post-Soviet space are a high priority for Russia and a tool, how the country articulates its interests in the region. The work provides a look at the development of Russia's foreign policy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and considers factors and ideological aspects that affected it. Selected integration projects and Russia's policies towards the Eurasian integration are described. The final part is devoted to the origins of Ukrainian crisis and Russia's attitude to it. Current, as well as potential impact of Ukrainian crisis on Russia's relations with the CIS states is derived from the analysis. KEYWORDS Russian Federation, Russian Foreign Policy, Ukraine, Commonwealth of...

Corruption has flourished in Ukraine for years, making Ukraine one of the most corrupt countries in Europe. However, since the Maidan in 2014, Ukraine has turned its political course towards the west, taken several steps in order to tackle corruption and tightened its cooperation with the European Union. The purpose of this research is to assess what measures has the EU undertaken between 2014-2018 to help Ukraine in its aspiration to combat corruption and to achieve rule of law. This research has found out that the EU has supported Ukraine to tackle corruption by suggesting changes and reforms with the aim to foster overall development, while simultaneously keeping in mind the anti-corruption priority. One significant outcome of the fight against corruption has been the creation of NABU, the National Anticorruption Bureau of Ukraine, which is today the central element in the anti-corruption campaign. Secondly, the EU has backed Ukraine economically, and thirdly, the EU has granted visa liberation for Ukrainian citizens, which is contributing to the broader cooperation between Ukraine and the EU. In the theoretical scale, this study found out that there is an ongoing identity building, whereas Ukraine seeks to exclude corruption as a societal norm and obtain the values of the EU instead.

During the 20th century the phenomenon of an autonomous Ukrainian symphony was not recognized widely. Paradoxically it was also not taken into consideration by the researchers of the symphonic process in the USSR. Thus in Mark Aranovskyi's book 'The Symphonic Searches' not one name of a Ukrainian symphonist is mentioned and the reader is led to the conclusion that it lacks symphonists in the Ukraine. Completely neglected were the Ukrainian symphony's historic, social and immanently musical contexts.

Das erneute Interesse für die Musik Prokofjews erwachte inl letzten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts im Zusammenhang mit dem 100. Geburtstag des Komponisten.

This study investigated the motivations and experiences of international volunteers’ who recently worked to support Ukrainian refugees in Poland. The study was particularly interested in exploring volunteers’ individual retrospective accounts, and what role the phenomenon of identity played before, during, and after volunteering. Six semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the study made use of Richard Jenkin’s (2014) theory on social identity. The study found the motivations to support Ukrainian refugees in Poland were influenced by an intertwining of individual and collective identification processes. It found that the interviewees’ self-identifications, whilst volunteering, were constructed based on the principles of similarities and differences, as well as on interactions. In addition, the study found that struggles concerning identity in the post-volunteering period were linked to collective identification and senses of guilt. The study aimed to complement the existing literature by adding a qualitative study about the displacement crisis from an international volunteer lens.

Following the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022, the EU imposed new heavy sanctions on Russia as a response to their act of aggression. The first EU sanctions on Russia were imposed following their annexation of Crimea in 2014, and sanctions have been employed ever since. However, the EU response in 2022 differs significantly from 2014 in both scope and impact, and the EU’s capability to reach an agreement was a surprise for scholars and experts. Drawing from a deliberative perspective, the aim of this thesis is to explain the agreement on EU sanctions against Russia in 2022-23. By analysing the arguments presented by the EU member states, this paper will examine how a collective stance on sanctions was attained. The findings will conclude that rights-based norms linked to international law, in particular the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination, enabled the agreement. Yet, security concerns had an impact on the discourse on sanctions which underlines the importance of a sense of threat. However, the rights-based norms were inextricably intertwined with value-based norms that influenced and shaped the discourse on which the agreement was reached. The value-based norms were linked to a particular duty to Europe and moral obligations vis-á-vis Ukrainians. Hence, European solidarity and a sense of European identity encompassed the discourse and facilitated the EU’s collective action.

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This paper investigates the Danish newspaper “Politiken’s” portrayal of the people forced to flee thefall of Afghanistan in August 2021 and the war in Ukraine beginning February 2021. It compares thefindings about the two groups of refugees. I use Tajfel and Turner’s (2011) social identity theory, DeGenova’s (2013) theory of the border spectacle, and Scheel and Squire’s (2014) theory of theproduction of forced migrants as illegal migrants, to explain the impact of Politiken’s discourse has onthe social reality. The method used is Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA). Thepaper finds that there is clear difference in the way Politiken portrays people forced to flee from thetwo countries. Politiken contributes to a discourse where Afghan refugees are labelled as the out-groupand categorized as illegal migrants. Opposite, the discourse used to portray the Ukrainian refugees ispositive and reinforces their belonging to the Danish in-group. They are categorized as legal migrantsand deserving of protection. This discourse extends to the social reality, and a good example is theexemption law, urgently passed to allow immediate protection of Ukrainian refugees arriving inDenmark. This paper adds an additional layer to existing research by comparing the two recent eventsof Ukraine and Afghanistan.

This thesis aimed to answer how the European Union performed as a 'global actor' in the Russia and Ukraine war from 2014 until 2022 using theoretical approaches of international relations theories. Furthermore, realist scholars define the concept of actorness as an entity capable of military decisions. At the same time, the constructivist believes that actorness is defined by other capabilities that impact the global arena. The thesis discusses the realist thinking that the European Union is not a global actor yet due to its lack of military powers. Whereas constructivism states that the European Union is a global actor, placing other means of power forward such as normative, civilian, and economic capabilities through examples. The European Union's performance as a global actor in the Russia and Ukraine conflict has not effectively stopped the war, as it has escalated despite the gradual economic sanctions imposed in 2014. The sanctions imposed by the European Union have not been effective in the past as Russia managed to blow the economic pressures over due to each other's economic interdependence. Therefore, the European Union launched its sixth package of economic sanctions in 2022 and might see success as it decided a total ban Russia's natural resources in the upcoming year. However, that remains a matter of speculation as the European Union is a global actor in progress, and the practical growth of its foreign policy is under exercise and will be discussed better in the future.

On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, framed as a limited “special military operation”, rather than the largest invasion in Europe since World War II. Although Ukraine put up fierce resistance, the Kremlin doubled down on their “special military operation”, using the Russian information space to insulate their population from the realities of the catastrophic invasion. However, as the months passed, Ukrainian capabilities grew, and a new threat to the carefully cultivated image of the invasion as limited emerged: strikes on military bases on territory that had been held by Russia before February 24. This study looks at the Russian media space’s reaction to four drone attacks on Russian held territory through mainstream media. The study uses the method “Naming, Blaming, Claiming” with the aim of showing how Russian media identified the problem (naming), who was responsible (blaming), and what was done to mitigate the issue (claiming). It will be shown that the blame for these attacks shifted with time, from Ukraine to the West. Additionally, it provides insight into how the Russian information space, specifically news media, behaves during such events.