Maidan

Description

2024 marked the tenth anniversary of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution—a landmark event in the evolution of the post-Cold War global order. What had started in late 2013 as a diplomatic showdown between Kyiv, Brussels and Moscow over Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the European Union would culminate in Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War.

Kyiv’s bold shift westward in 2014 was closely intertwined with developments in the wider Baltic, which influenced—and were in turn shaped by—events in Ukraine. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas triggered a rethink of security policy across this geostrategically significant part of the world, including defence planning, military spending, troop deployment and the region’s positioning within the Euro-Atlantic security architecture.

Maidan also reopened questions of Ukraine’s membership in, and Russia’s relationship with, NATO. Kyiv’s geopolitical reorientation further rekindled historical memories of Ukraine’s association with the greater Baltic and inspired new thinking around a future geopolitical bloc comprising the so-called ‘lands in between’.

This volume brings together leading experts of the history, theory and practice of international relations alongside distinguished foreign and security policy practitioners to examine wider regional perspectives on, and responses to, Maidan and its aftermath—consequential developments that continue to reshape Europe today.

Author(s)

Donatas Kupčiūnas PhD is a Baltic Fellow of the Centre for Geopolitics and Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, working on the international history of Eastern Europe and Russia.

Trevelyan S. Wing PhD is a Fellow of the Centre for Geopolitics and Honorary Research Associate of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, researching evolving security challenges in the greater Baltic, Northern Europe and the High North.