Abstract
This paper analyses the conflictual and cooperative signals of two domestic actors – the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian separatists – and two international actors – the European Union and the Russian Federation – during the first three years of the conflict in Ukraine. Previous studies largely treated the actions of domestic actors as a dependent variable and the actions of international actors as an independent variable. Our results demonstrate that the European Union and the Russian Federation, far from being independent players, assume the role of an ‘error correction mechanism’ by counterbalancing and counteracting the unbalanced and non-reciprocal interactions of the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian separatists, thereby transforming an otherwise asymmetric conflict into a symmetric one. The paper discusses liberal institutionalist, social constructivist and offensive realist explanations for the observed behaviour and demonstrates why the offensive realist explanation fares best in light of Russia’s massive escalation in 2022.