The College of Political Science at the University of Baghdad discussed the master’s thesis entitled “The Buffer State and its Impact on Maintaining the Regional Balance in Ukraine after 2014… Opportunities and Challenges” by the student “Sura Ali Muhammad”, under the supervision of Professor Dr. “Ahmed Abdel-Amir Al-Anbari.”
The thesis explained that the means of achieving balance of power and regional balance play an essential role in reducing the possibilities of direct military collision among competing powers. This thesis focuses on studying the issue in several aspects, starting from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the independence of Ukraine as a state, and its emergence as a buffer field that contributes to preventing the escalation of tension within its region, leading to the international and regional changes that Ukraine witnessed after the year 2014, which led to undermining the Ukrainian buffering role between the Russian Federation, on the one hand, and NATO and the European Union on the other hand. The importance of the study stemmed from a clarification and consistent analysis of the nature international and regional variables after 2014 and their impact on Ukraine’s status as a buffer state. The 2014 crisis, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and the events that followed, which led to the Russian-Ukrainian war, caused the rift and collapse of the Ukrainian buffer zone strategy separating Russia and NATO. The study also focuses on determining international and regional positions on Ukraine as a buffer state. The study showed the clash of Western will with the Russian desire to preserve Ukraine as a buffer and neutral state between them, through an attempt to include it in the Euro-Atlantic system with the aim of containing Russia and preventing it from expanding into its traditional sphere of influence.
At the end of the viva, the researcher was awarded a master’s degree with a grade of “very good.” Wishing all college students good luck and success.
