Russian leadership efforts to discredit Ukraine as a “failed state”: economic and political dimensions

Abstract

The concept of “failed state” was introduced into scientific terminology in the early 90's of the twentieth century. In this way scientists defined states that had lost their subjectivity on the international arena and were not able to carry out the state administration on their own territory. Usually, these were countries with ongoing internal conflicts, where state bodies could not perform their inherent functions, and negative phenomena were manifested in the economic and social spheres, therefore these countries were considered “incapable”.
After the Pomarancheva revoliutsiia (Orange revolution) and the establishment of pro-western political elites in Ukraine, the official Kremlin increased its efforts to discredit the Ukrainian state in the international arena. To secure the “failed state” reputation for Ukraine, representatives of Russian political elites spread false information about Ukrainian authority losing control over the processes within the state and growing tyranny. At the meeting with the American President Vladimir Putin even said that “...Ukraine is not even a state!”.

After the Revoliutsiia Hidnosti (Revolution of Dignity) and the annexation of Crimea,the next stage of the Kremlin's propaganda manipulations has begun. Interesting enough is the fact that in a situation when Russian aggression caused greater losses for the Ukrainian economy than the global economic crisis of 2008-2009, it is still the Kremlin which cynically tries to use the deterioration of the socio-economic situation of Ukraine to discredit it. At the
same time, the Russian leadership deliberately does not take into account the improvement of the economic situation for Ukrainians over the past years and ignores the fact that according to the index of fragility of States, Ukraine holds a better position than the Russian Federation.
Thus, despite the Russian aggression and the problems caused by it, Ukraine shows positive dynamics in terms of development. Indicators of this development, as well as the results of authoritative international ratings, testify that open and veiled statements of the official Moscow about “insolvency” of Kyiv are the Kremlin leadership's propaganda manipulations that are devoid of the factual background, in order to weaken the international
authority of the Ukrainian state.