Different Approaches to Understanding the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict

Trapara Vladimir (Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade, Serbia.), vtrapara@diplomacy.bg.ac.rs

Understanding a hot topic in international relations like the Russo-Ukrainian War (which broke out in February 2022) can be approached in a variety of ways. The existing scientific literature about the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that culminated in this war leaves room for a classification and critical review of the approaches to its understanding. The author of this paper does it based on the four criteria: “assigning blame” for the conflict against the systemic approach; levels of analysis at which causes of the conflict are sought; IR theory/school of thought based on which the conflict is analysed; and historical against a nonhistorical approach. Separately considering the geopolitical approach and differentiating between the Russo-Ukrainian War and a wider Russo-Ukrainian conflict, as well as between deeper and precipitating causes of the conflict, the author uses his assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to suggest the one that would be optimal for understanding such an important topic

Keywords: Russo-Ukrainian War, Russo-Ukrainian conflict, understanding international conflicts, systemic approach, levels of analysis, IR theories, historical approach, geopolitics