WHY DID THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ANNEX THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA AND INVADE THE DONBAS IN EASTERN UKRAINE IN 2014
Journal: Calhoun: The Naval Postgraduate School Institutional Archive (Naval Postgraduate School)
Year: 2020

The research discusses Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and seeks to find the explanatory answer to this question: Why did the Russian Federation illegally annex the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and invade Donbas in 2014? The thesis studies and evaluates Russia's hostilities toward Ukraine within the lenses of three hypothetical explanations'realist, constructivist, and regime survival'in two case studies: 1) annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and 2) invasion of Ukrain