Annexation Of Crimea 2014-Case Study Of Geopolitics In Contemporary International Relations

This article aims to present the issue of "Annexation of Crimea by Russian Federation in 2014" to the wider audience in a descriptive manner, providing recent historical background of the issue, selected international responses towards the developments of this crisis and to explain it using the theory of structural realism, with its close counterparts of geopolitics and geostrategy. In the second chapter, it provides a highlight to the strategic value of the Crimean Peninsula by means of geography,history and politics, and makes an account of the immediate cause and actual process of annexation. The third chapter describes the plethora of reactions from the international community in regards to the act of the annexation, with a focus towards the main international organizations of the world (namely the United Nations, EU, NATO and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and an explanation for the different statements and stances of select countries connected to the issue by means of geopolitics. The fourth and last chapter is the author’s attempt to put the annexation event and underlying political maneuverings in a neorealist geopolitical perspective. The main argument is that the annexation of the peninsula was pushed by the government of Russian Federation as a reaction towards the intensifying relations between the country of Ukraine (former and still de iure owner of Crimea),considered by Russia as one of the"buffer" states in accordance with the "near abroad / far abroad" policy,and European Union - seen by Moscow as a de facto civillian arm of the NATO on European soil. To deepen the understanding of Russian decision on the Crimean affair, a geopolitical subset theory of "Landbridge & Watchtowers" have been coined and explained by the author as an attempt at analyzing Russian motivations for the annexation. It argues, that Crimean Peninsula is comparable to the Kaliningrad Oblast, an exterritorial exclave serving Russia as a military base and trading hub; effectively a "watchtower" with access to a strategically important body of water (Baltic Sea for Kaliningrad and Black Sea for Crimea),"keeping watch" over the extremes of the "landbridge" - Eastern European landmass of critical importance for Russia in matters of security. As the recent history showed, the annexation of Crimea, 2014, was one of the most important political events that happened in Europe since the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.