Ukraine crisis: Trends and Perspectives

Thecrisis in Ukraine has become a tragedy, as is evidenced by the thousands ofpeople who have been killed, and hundreds of thousands of refugees. It willalter the future of Ukraine, Europe, Eurasia and possibly the world. The crisisbegan in the fall of 2013 as a public response to the authorities’ ill-advisedpolicy and the greed of the elite. However, clumsy assistance provided byconcerned «partners» turned the crisis into a coup, a power grab and subsequentchaos, which quickly spread across Ukraine, one of Europe’s largest countries.Months later, Ukraine is still fighting a bloody civil war and humanitariancatastrophe amid an increasingly destructive economic crisis. However, few havelooked at what came to be called the ‘Ukraine crisis’ from the point of viewof  Russo-Ukrainian relations, andgrasped the perspectives of various groups involved, as well as the discursiveprocesses that have contributed to the developments in and interpretations ofthe conflict.