In this latest Strategic Update, Valur Ingimundarson explores Russia’s use of the ‘Kosovo precedent’, in order to instrumentalise its violation of international norms for geopolitical gain in the post-Soviet space. Ever since Kosovo’s 2008 unique and contested independence process, Russia has increasingly relied paradoxically on the Kosovo case to legally justify support for secession within, and now overt military expansionism into, post-Soviet territory: from its invasion of Georgia and support for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, to the incorporation of Crimea into the Federation, its invasion of Ukraine, and current effort to absorb the Donbass region.

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The ‘Kosovo Precedent’: Russia’s justification of military interventions and territorial revisions in Georgia and Ukraine

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The ‘Kosovo Precedent’: Russia’s justification of military interventions and territorial revisions in Georgia and Ukraine

About the author

Valur Ingimundarsonis an associate of LSE IDEAS. He is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Iceland. His current research focuses on the return of geopolitics in the North and the resurgence of nationalism and populism in Europe.