“The Russian Spring” (Eastern Ukraine)
Journal: Cambridge University Press eBooks
Year: 2023

Chapter 6 is the second part of our analytic narrative. We describe coordination failure by Russian-speaking elites trying to decide whether or not they wanted to try to emulate Crimea. The chapter contrasts the orderly spectacle of irredentist annexation in Crimea with the chaotic “Russian Spring” across Eastern and Southern Ukraine. The existential question was whether the interstate border would change again. The Party of Regions had imploded, so there was no mechanism of transregional cooper