The Russian government’s coercive measures against Ukraine in 2014 have contravened many norms of international law, but these measures have been characteristic of the way other great powers have responded in analogous situations. One of the enduring features of international relations is that some states are more equal than others. Great powers stand a much better chance of committing transgressions with impunity. That is precisely what has happened with Russia in its dealings with CIS countries from 1992 until this year. The adverse international response to Russia’s actions vis-à-vis Ukraine in 2014 may shake Russian leaders’ sense of impunity, but will undoubtedly not eliminate it altogether.

Mark Kramer is Director of the Cold War Studies Program at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow of Harvard's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.  He has taught at Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities and was formerly an Academy Scholar in Harvard's Academy of International and Area Studies and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University.

This article is part of Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Carnegie Forum: Rebuilding U.S.-Russia Relations. Read more perspectives here.

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