Features of the Transformation of the EU’s Foreign Policy Behavior Paradigm After a Full-Scale Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022, has put on the agenda the question of consolidating the international community’s efforts in order to oppose Russian aggression in Europe and create conditions for preventing armed confrontations in the future. Without exaggeration, it can be stated that the European Union plays a special role in creating a system of collective repulsion of the aggressor and ensuring its effective functioning. Its unprecedented “geopolitical awakening” in response to another Russian aggression against Ukraine has immediately become the subject of numerous scientific investigations by foreign and domestic experts. In addition, the change in the behavioral logic used by the EU in defending the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine between 2014, when the Russian Federation’s armed invasion of Crimea took place, and the events of February 2022 has not gone unnoticed by scholars. The article analyzes the main behavioral models of foreign policy actors and also makes the assumption that Russia’s full-scale military offensive against Ukraine, which destroyed the established European security architecture, has led to the transformation of the behavioral paradigm of the EU, which is primarily seen in the change of its foreign policy goals. The conducted analysis of the EU’s behavioral logic confirmed the assumption and allowed us to conclude that before the invasion, the bloc acted as an actor pursuing a policy of the status quo, but after – its role changed to a normative one.