Putin or -out? - En fallstudie kring ryskt utrikespolitiskt agerande

Sammanfattning: Former states of the Soviet Union see themselves having various relations with Russia after the annexation of Crimea in early 2014. The following text will analyse how Russian foreign policy have developed during recent time and how it has affected the relations with Ukraine and the Baltic States regarding this situation. Using the terms of diplomacy, diplomatic signaling and the use of soft power we will analyze how Russian relations with neighbouring countries have developed and how different political tactics, apart from military force or economic threats, can be used in order to strengthen Russia on the world stage. The results show that diplomatic signaling and soft power might be used to a certain extent in order to legitimize russian intervention in order to protect Russian citizens abroad. However, we find our research to be limited with regards to the limited amount of time and resources.