Why Didn’t Ukraine Fight for Crimea? Evidence from Declassified National Security and Defense Council Proceedings
Journal: Problems of Post-Communism
Year: 2021

While the Russian decision to annex Crimea has been widely explored and debated, scholarship has largely overlooked the Ukrainian response. Why did the Ukrainian side refrain from escalating? I address this gap, leveraging recently declassified primary-source materials from Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council to provide an original explanation for the Ukrainian decision not to fight for the peninsula. I find evidence in favor of realist explanations, while domestic politics was large