Experts warn that decades of Western complacency in the face of a raging global conflict has been caused by the West‘s view of Ukraine as a “buffer zone” separating Europe and Russia.
The war in Ukraine revealed a gap between Western perceptions of geopolitical reality and the realities on the ground. Outdated worldviews, flawed academic perspectives and naivety have led to a naivety which has inadvertently bolstered Russia’s imperial aspirations.
Western misconceptions about Ukraine’s global position, its history, and its national identity are pervasive in academia, the media, and policy circles. These misunderstandings led to a dangerous underestimation in the strategic importance of Ukraine and Russia’s territorial ambitions.
Euromaidan Press analyses how Western misinterpretations have fueled the current conflict, with insights from Cambridge University Ukrainian studies expert Rory Finnin, and former Portuguese European affairs secretary Bruno Macaes. This analysis was shared at Kyiv‘s Book Arsenal Festival.
Western scholars are blind to the myth of buffer zones
Rory Finnin who founded Ukrainian Studies at Cambridge in 2008 argues that Western scholars misunderstood Ukraine for a long time, with serious consequences.
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