The content of the political factor that determined Russia’s aggression against Ukraine

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the political factor as a key determinant of the Russian Federation’s armed aggression against Ukraine. The author argues for the necessity of examining the crime of aggression not only through the lens of individual behavior but also through global factor schemes, which include socio-political, economic, and bio-social components.
Based on Samuel Huntington’s civilizational approach, it is substantiated that the current Russian-Ukrainian war unfolds along the «civilizational fault line» separating the Euro-Atlantic civilization, to which Ukraine historically gravitates, from the Asian (Central Asian) civilization, of which Russia is a component. The paper critically analyzes the erroneous geopolitical assessments of Western leaders in the late 20th and early 21st centuries regarding Russia’s democratization and Francis Fukuyama’s concept of the «end of history,» which led to the world’s unpreparedness to confront the resurgence of Russian imperialism.
Particular attention is paid to the historical and ideological evolution of the «Russian World» concept. The author traces its origins from the «Kyiv Synopsis» (17th century) and Count Uvarov’s doctrine («Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality») to Soviet «proletarian internationalism» and the modern ideology of Rashism . The content of Rashism is detailed as a new type of totalitarian ideology combining Russian chauvinism, imperialism, and practices of communist and Nazi regimes, as recognized by the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
It is established that the antagonistic contradictions between Ukraine’s democratic system and Russia’s authoritarian-totalitarian regime, exacerbated by the personal factor of the dictator Putin and the false thesis of «one people,» made aggression an inevitable consequence of the realization of the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions.