Authors

Olena Khylko¹;  ¹ Comenius University, Slovakia

Discussion

Within a broader discourse on the decolonization of International Relations (IR) this discussion aims at showing how postcolonial and de-colonial approaches to the analysis of Ukraine – Russia relations can be useful to explain Ukraine’s vision of the unconditional victory in the war that Russia wages against it. The discussion will highlight the pertinence of adopting a postcolonial approach to explain Russia's assertive conduct and Ukraine's responses to aggression as well as the reasons behind Ukraine’s EU and NATO policies. The findings may be replicated to the analysis of Russia's policy in the broader “near abroad.” Application of both postcolonial and de-colonial optics to the analysis of East European region may lead to re-calibrating the roles of the Eastern European countries from bulwarks and borderlands to more agent actors.