Hybrid war as an tool of foreign policy of the Russian Federation: the Ukrainian dimension (1991-2023)

Ukraine, as a victim of hybrid aggression, is directly interested in integration into the international infrastructure for countering hybrid threats. The idea of creating a national body that will be responsible for interdepartmental coordination to counter hybrid threats has already been discussed in publications (Danyliuk, 2021, pp. 42-43). High-level strategic advisers from the Defense Reform Advisory Board also supported the idea of creating a centre for countering hybrid threats in Ukraine, which should become a platform for international cooperation and exchange of experience and should be based on the government's active cooperation with NATO to build national resilience.

However, despite the political statements, to date the Ukrainian side has not taken any measures aimed at creating such a structure that would ensure coordination and countermeasures against hybrid aggression of the Russian Federation both inside the country and outside, in cooperation with the partner countries, at the national level, which are part of the NATO bloc. Declaring a political course for rapprochement with the European Union, applying for membership in NATO, Ukraine should at least now take real political steps that allow to clearly define its geopolitical orientation and the direction of the development course, because the inhibition of these processes leads to irreparable losses.

The Conclusions

The hybrid war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine began from the time of its declaration of independence and the creation of a sovereign state, intensified after the Revolution of Dignity, as a result of the mass expression of the will of the people of Ukraine regarding the choice of the geopolitical path of the development of their country, and turned into an open war in 2022.

Taking into account the events related to the Russian invasion of 2022, it can be argued that, in addition to Ukraine, victims of the hybrid influence of the Russian Federation are also other states of the post-Soviet camp, in particular Belarus, from whose territory the Russian troops entered the territory of Ukraine in 2022, and there was missile shelling and drone attacks. Moldova is also a victim of the hybrid war of the Russian Federation, within which the political situation is currently actively shaking up with the aim of removing the current political leaders from power and replacing them with the pro-Russian ones, simultaneously with threats about the participation of the Russian troops in the event of an escalation of the conflict with the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic.

Mass protests in Georgia, which recently have taken place due to the adoption of the law on foreign agents by the Georgian parliament, against the background of a gradual change in the country's political course towards the collapse of democracy and rapprochement with Russia, are also a direct sign of the Russian hybrid influence. Finally, the results of the vote of the UN General Assembly on February 23, 2023 regarding the resolution calling on Russia to stop the hostilities and withdraw its troops from Ukraine, and among the countries that abstained were Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajykystan, and Uzbekystan, show that the front of the hybrid war waged by the Russian Federation is extremely broad.

The results of Russia's hybrid influence on the state life and politics of individual countries pose a threat to international security and destroy the world legal order. Taking the above mentioned into account, the issues of the existing directions of deployment of hybrid war, the main objects of vulnerabilities of hybrid attacks, the system of markers that determine them, require further scientific research, with the aim of designing and building a system of fuses that will allow to localize and minimize the destructive consequences of a hybrid influence in the near and distant future for both Ukraine and its partners.

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