In order to silence the resistance, the Soviet Union under Stalin kept the population in permanent fear and uncertainty by recurrent purges of innocent citizens, ‘Old Bolsheviks’ and Red Army commanders, thus terrorizing the entire population. Similar conspiracy narratives are used under Putin. In order to keep his grip on power, after the Beslan massacre, Putin’s administration discourse hints at the operation of an international conspiracy of states using terrorism as an instrument to weaken Russia.

In this article, I summarize the justification for Ukrainian state sovereignty, in spite of Russia’s claim of the non-existence of such sovereignty. The Russians invaded Ukraine claiming their right to justify their interests. The occupation of Crimea by Russian forces and their declaration of its annexation to Russia was an act of aggression disapproved of by the United Nations (2014). I also outline the nature of the limited war between Ukraine and Russia that is managed by ethnic Russians living in the Donbas region and Russian emissaries.

When the debate on globalization started in the early 1990s, the dominant assumption was that globalization was a shocking new phenomenon. Moreover, this new development was seen as an attempt to undermine the sovereignty and economic functions of the nation state, hence undermining the fundamental basis of the welfare state. According to this perspective, the welfare state was expected to collapse as a result of economic constraints. Some influential publications promoted the idea that countries would find themselves captured in a global trap. At least in the field of social sciences, this thesis was interpreted differently: the weakening of the nation state by globalization was considered a myth that served as an excuse for cutting government budgets. Since then, the social sciences have developed an approach to globalization as a long-term trend within the capitalistic framework, driven by economic and political developments and dependent on pre-existing social conditions.

At least as far back as the reign of Tsar Nicholas I, Russia's state bureaucracy has been widely considered to be top-heavy, corrupt, inefficient and tyrannical. By the early twentieth century the real driving force of Russian history and society was neither the constitutional façade erected by the autocracy to stifle the revolution nor the subsequent Bolshevik seizure of power, but rather the growth of the state bureaucracy. Similarly, in the course of the twentieth century, analysts on both the left and the right came to view hyper-bureaucratic growth unchecked by democratic constraint as the major problem of Soviet society. Attempts to reduce bureaucratic interference in the economy of post-Soviet Russia have not resulted in positive change.

In this article, I argue that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, by his political actions in Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Central Asian countries, and his current actions in Ukraine, strives to re-establish the nineteenth-century Russian Empire, ignoring the principle of international law that protects the sovereignty of each nation-state over its territory. In order to achieve his goals Putin uses ‘soft force’ and social fermentation in Russian-speaking ‘near abroad’ nation-states of the former Soviet Union. He also uses a policy of weakening the economy of the target countries and uses the Russian chauvinism and irredentism as the basis of his policy.