Ukrainian foreign policy expertise and Russia’s military security in the Black Sea region

This article is the first attempt in political science to determine the specifics of potential influence on Russia’s military security that may be exerted by the existing views on Russia and on the Black Sea region in the geopolitical worldview of the experts from the main Ukrainian think-tanks engaged in Russian and Black Sea studies. Using synthetic methodology based on certain principles and provisions of critical geopolitics, the theory of epistemic communities by Peter Haas, and securitization theory by Barry Buzan and Olle Wæver, the author studied the texts of analytical products of the institutions of foreign policy expertise that appeared in Ukraine in 2014–20. This allowed the author to establish securitized perceptions of Russia and the Black Sea region, typical for Ukrainian experts. The study of their recommendations to Ukrainian state authorities provided an opportunity to determine the potential threats to the military security of Russia. In order to understand how securitized perceptions and expert recommendations are considered by the ruling regime in Ukraine, the texts of Ukrainian military and foreign policy doctrines and strategies (approved or under discussion in 2014–21) were analyzed. All this allowed the author to come to a number of conclusions regarding the provision of Russia’s military security in the Black Sea region. It has been established that a whole pool of institutions of foreign policy expertise is engaged in Russian and Black Sea studies in Ukraine, and this pool of institutions has all the signs of an epistemic community. Its members broadcast to the Ukrainian authorities the irrational securitized ideas about Russia contained in their geopolitical worldview. They describe Russian foreign and defense policy through the desire for expansion and restoration of the Soviet Union as well as through xenophobic anti-Russian political myths. With this, these experts justify the measures that are absolutely realistic in their essence and, firstly, are aimed at creating an anti-Russian collective security system in the Black Sea region, and secondly, can lead to an armed conflict in the region with the participation of the states outside the Black See region.