Russian revisionism as a challenge to the international order

The Kremlin deliberately instrumentalizes historical past, presenting Russia as a "great power" and a center of civilization that claims spheres of influence. A special role in this sense is given to the historical metanarrative about "Victory Day", which promotes the view of Russia as the successor state of the USSR, which defeated Nazi Germany in the Second World War and "liberated" Eastern Europe from fascist invaders. The Russian policy of commemorating the victory is determined, in particular, by the fact that the USSR, as part of the "Big Three", became one of the "architects" of the postwar world order in 1945, and Yalta is a symbol of recognition of Moscow's international influence. As a result, communist regimes were established in half of the European countries. Therefore, the desire of the political leadership of Russia to monopolize the status of the winner is completely consistent with the current foreign policy course to revive the "spirit of Yalta" and "negotiate" a new configuration of forces in a multipolar world. Thus, in his next historical survey on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, President Putin put forward the ideas of a new Yalta conference. The "Forces of Victory", he noted, should approach "the creation of a new world order" with "maximum seriousness" in order not to "repeat the mistakes of the past". According to Putin, these forces were to be the "Big Five": the United States, France, Great Britain, Russia, and China [Putin, 2020].

It should be noted that Russian memory of the Second World War does not agree with the corresponding memory in European countries, especially in Poland and the Baltic states, which were occupied by the USSR before the beginning of the Second World War. It also contradicts historical memory of most European countries, whose "liberation" culminated in the establishment of authoritarian pro-Soviet regimes. Moscow's non-acceptance is also caused by the recognition of historical responsibility of the USSR for the beginning of the Second World War, since in 1939 the Soviet Union acted as a de facto ally of Nazi Germany, which together attacked Poland. Instead, a clear conclusion on this matter is offered by the resolution of the European Parliament adopted in 2019, which unequivocally condemns the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and assigns equal responsibility to Germany and the USSR for the start of the Second World War [European Parliament, 2109]. According to I. Boginska, this not only devalues the USSR's contribution to the victory over Germany, but also discredits modern Russia, including its myth about the "Great Victory" [Boginska, 2021].

Glorification of victory has become the main "fastener" of the Putin regime, the basis of the state myth that justifies past and present crimes, war and repression. It manifests itself in annual militaristic parades, exaltation of patriotism, glorification of Stalin, preservation and cultivation of the "image of the enemy". It is not surprising that the ribbon of Saint George became a symbol of the occupation of Crimea in 2014, the so-called "militia" in Donbas and the new stage of the war against Ukraine from February 24, 2022. Archaic ideological concepts of the Second World War have been used to justify full-scale Russian aggression and included the "denazification" of Ukraine, its "liberation" from the "Nazis", "Banderites", "neo-Nazis".

Conclusions

Russian revisionism is based on the geopolitical ambitions of V. Putin's political regime to build a multipolar international order. It envisages the establishment of Russia as a "Great Power" and a civilizational pole that projects power within the Russian sphere of influence. First of all, this applies to the post-Soviet space, where Moscow seeks to assume the role of a security regulator and imposes the concept of "limited sovereignty" for satellite countries. Turning to a forceful, anti-system strategy, Russian revisionism currently poses the greatest threat to the open international system compared to the revisionist projects of China and Iran. The Kremlin's revisionist policy aims to impose a new security architecture in Europe, limit the influence of NATO, and undermine trust in democratic institutions of the EU. Moscow sees the fulfillment of the ultimate requirement of recognition of security guarantees on the basis of an international agreement, which would fix the principle of spheres of influence, as an indicator of achieving such a state. Within this geopolitical logic, a full-scale unprovoked war against Ukraine aims to destroy the existing international status quo in Europe and actually demonstrate Russia's assertion of the principle of spheres of influence.

To ideologically justify the foreign policy doctrine of Russian revisionism, the Kremlin uses a bizarre combination of geopolitical concepts and ideologemes of different eras of Russian statehood - the Muscovite Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. The most important of them were: the medieval concept of "Moscow, Third Rome", the doctrine of official nationality, Slavophile ideology, right-wing radical monarchical ideas, geopolitical concept of Eurasianism, Orthodox fundamentalism. To justify territorial claims, Russian leadership actively uses various ideologemes such as "Russian civilization", "special way", "triune nationality", "Greater Eurasia", "Holy Rus", "historical Russia", "anti-Russia", "Victory Day", "Nazis", "Banderites", "one nation", etc. The ideology of the "Russian world" became the most expressive embodiment of these views. It professes to defend "Holy Rus" and traditional values, spreading anti-liberalism and criticism of the Western world instead. This explains the need to introduce "educated authoritarianism" in Russia, militarization of society, restriction of human rights and freedoms as elements of an ideal political system that allows protecting "true" Christian values and "true" Russian sovereignty. The war of aggression launched by Russia is directly based on the national-conservative ideology of "Russian peace".

Russian revisionism poses an existential threat not only to the sovereignty of Ukraine, European institutions and values, and is not limited to Moscow's desire for regional hegemony in the post-Soviet space. Given the challenges to global food and energy security, the threat of using nuclear weapons, and most importantly, the ideological conflict, the Russian-Ukrainian war is taking on a global character. It is primarily about the global confrontation between liberal and autocratic views on the future of the world system, where revisionist power politics claims its own understanding of democracy, sovereignty and international law. This policy rejects universal human rights and asserts a utopian Orwellian picture of the spatial fragmentation of the world represented by the borders of several superpowers.

The utopian vision of the future world order is conditioned not only by the sickly attitudes of Russian political elites, but also by the global erosion of democracy and the liberal world order, which has been comprehensively attacked by authoritarian regimes and Russian propaganda as unsuitable for solving modern challenges. Against this background, the consolidation of Western democracies in support of Ukraine's sovereignty has become an unexpected turn for the Kremlin. The Russian invasion gave new strength and meaning to the promotion of democracy and liberalism and sharply undermined Russia's claims to the status of a great power. In the future, the Ukrainian victory should be the beginning of the end of the "authoritarian international". This requires a mandatory international criminal tribunal against the aggressor and reform of the UN Security Council, where veto abuse threatens the rules-based international order.

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