Abstract

The article dwells on the peculiarities of current Russian-Ukrainian conflct, which is viewed as an act of Russian Federation aggression on the sovereign Ukrainian state and which is a flgrant violation of international law. The Russian-Ukrainian conflct is viewed globally as an attempt of Russian aggressor-state to change the geopolitical balance of power on the international arena. The aggressive policy of Russia is a challenge to the modern international system, an attempt to implement the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions to become a leading country in the world, and, thus, restoring bipolarity of the world existent in the past. The authors emphasize that the imperial plans of the Russian Federation have currently failed. Military achievements of Russia in Ukraine are much smaller than they were expected to be. At the same time, the international community united against the aggressor-state imposing economic sanctions which, along with a signifiant decline of the world oil and natural gas prices, adversely affect functioning of the Russian economy. The international image of the Russian Federation has also incurred a considerable damage. This situation, according to the authors, has forced Russia to pay attention to the East where China may be the main ally, which, however, has its own plans and national interests that have questioned the close Russian-Chinese alliance. Active inclusion of Russia in the war in Syria is also the evidence of Kremlin’s attempts to return to the geopolitical arena, divert Russian population attention from the failures on the Ukrainian front, and obtain concessions or even complete removal of sanctions. But the situation shows that the Russian government’s plans are still far from fulfilment. Taking into consideration the geopolitical scale of the Russian-Ukrainian conflct, the authors predict various options for the transformation of the international system: unipolarity, bipolarity, multipolarity, or uni-multipolarity. The last two options are the most likely to appear. However, the features of transformation of the international system are determined by many factors, among which the main are the following ones: actions and will of the Russian authorities; success of Ukrainian authorities reforms; level of Ukrainian society stability; events in Syria; the level of consolidation in Europe; the result of the upcoming presidential elections in the United States and others.