¹ See generally, Umut Özsu, Ukraine, International Law, and the Political Economy of Self-Determination, 16 German L.J. 434 (2015) (examining these in an exemplary manner). I thank Anne Orford for the methodological discussion that made this explicit in Turku April 27, 2015. See also Anne Orford, In Praise of Description, 25 Leiden J. Int'l L. 609-25 (2012).Google Scholar

² Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges; The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, 14 Feminist Studs. 575, 592-93 (1988).Google Scholar

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⁶ See OSCE (HCNM), Human Rights Assessment Mission in Ukraine 9 (May 12, 2014), http://www.osce.org/odihr/118476?download=true (“No increase in the manifestation of intolerance or escalation of violence against the Russian-speaking population was observed in the [visited] regions. …”); see also Brad R. Roth, The Virtues of Bright Lines: Self-Determination, Secession, and External Intervention, 16 German L.J. 384 (2015).Google Scholar

⁷ See Kellman, Barry, MH17 and the Missile Threat to Aviation, 18 ASIL Insights (2014), http://www.asil.org/insights/volume/18/issue/19/mh17-and-missile-threat-aviation (last visited June 15, 2015) (stating that the make/country of origin of the arms is not sufficient to prove state responsibility in the circumstances of the international arms trade and smuggling today).Google Scholar

⁸ See Posner, Eric, Russia's Military Intervention in Ukraine: International Law Implications, http://ericposner.com/russias-military-intervention-in-ukraine-international-law-implications/ (last visited Jan. 15, 2015) (associating irrelevance based on enforcement deficit critique on international law in Ukraine crisis).Google Scholar

⁹ Austin has been discussed by many as the progenitor of the idea that without efficient enforcement a system cannot be properly called legal. According to the command theory of law, international law could not be regarded as law at all. Austin was criticized by H.L.A. Hart, who also had reservations about the legal quality of international law. See, e.g., Mehrdad Payandeh, The Concept of International Law in the Jurisprudence of H.L.A. Hart, 21 Eur. J. Int'l L. 967 § B (2010).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Mamlyuk, Boris M., The Ukraine Crisis, Cold War II, and International Law, 16 German L.J. 479, 515 (2015) (unraveling the concept of Cold War and what its meaning structures entail in a precise and highly insightful discussion).Google Scholar

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¹² See Kennedy, David, Of War and Law (2006) (noting that David Kennedy has thus been right to characterize modern war as lawfare).Google Scholar

¹³ See Mamlyuk, supra note 10 (demonstrating that one needs an analytical description on a larger scale, probing the deeper layers of the conflict, and, in more detail).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Kaldor, Mary, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in Global Era (1999).Google Scholar

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¹⁹ VPK News No. 8, Feb. 5, 2013, http://vpk-news.ru/sites/default/files/pdf/VPK_08_476.pdf (last visited June 15, 2015); Sam Jones, Ukraine: Russia's New Art of War, Financial Times, Aug. 28, 2014, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ea5ES2fa-2E0c-11e4-b760-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3QDUHEgwh (last visited June 15, 2015).Google Scholar

²⁰ Hoffman, Frank, Hybrid Warfare and Challenges, 52 Joint Force Q., 34, 37 (2009). Western military strategists had also discussed new wars, asymmetry, compound strategies, and hybrid wars, particularly in reference to the Middle East.Google Scholar

²¹ The billiard-ball-theory of states as units is associated with the neo-Realism of Kenneth Waltz, in particular, in Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics 99 (1979); although the structural causes of conflict in the international system are part of Waltz's theory, the analysis here opposes the neo-realist take and posits that states should be understood as non-unitary actors with diffused rather than tightly shut borders and cultural spaces.Google Scholar

²² In the Western media, the hybridity was suppressed by making ominous references to the Franco-British appeasement policies and the traumas of the 1930s. Owen Wilson, David Cameron Warns of “Appeasing Putin Like Hitler,” Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/02/david-cameron-warns-appeasing-putin-ukraine-hitler (last visited Jan. 28, 2015) (criticizing the cynicisms of the comparison and refers to reports of off-record discussions both between EU Commission President Barroso and President Putin, and those among the Western leaders in the Nato summit in September 2014).Google Scholar

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²⁵ Id. Still, hybrid wars are not reducible to anarchy. While methods of such wars constantly transform through the reciprocal exploitation and fueling of the development of cutting edge technologies for war, Gerasimov traced the hybrid war mindset back to U.S. tactics in Desert Storm but also to partisans in World War II, and Soviet methods in Northern Caucasus and Afghanistan; whereas, Hoffman made comparisons even with certain battles in the American Civil War.Google Scholar

²⁶ See, e.g., Gray, Colin, Strategy and History, Essays on Theory and Practice 185 (2006) (citing Clausewitz and Bull) (“War, its threat and actuality, is an instrument of policy.”).Google Scholar

²⁷ Contrast Paulus, Andreas & Vashakmadze, Mindia, Asymmetrical War and the Notion of Armed Conflict—A Tentative Conceptualization, 91 Rev. Red Cross 95 (2009), with David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (2013), and Saskia Sassen, When the City Itself Becomes a Technology of War, 27 Theory, Culture & Soc'y 33 (2010).Google Scholar

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²⁹ For example, the actions of Palestinian suicide bombers are often juxtaposed to the vast technological superiority of the Israeli army; the conflicting units are different and, therefore, the tactics are also available.Google Scholar

³⁰ See generally, Roth, Brad, The Virtues of Bright Lines: Self-Determination, Secession, and External Intervention, 16 German L.J. 384 (2015).Google Scholar

³¹ See Oklopcic, Zoran, The idea of Early-Conflict Constitution-Making: The Conflict in Ukraine Beyond Territorial Rights and Constitutional Paradoxes, 16 German L.J. 658, 670 (2015).Google Scholar

³² From that perspective, nations indeed present themselves as “imagined communities.” Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities; Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1982).Google Scholar

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³⁴ Avioutskii, Viatcheslav, The Consolidation of Ukrainian Business Clans, 1 Revue Internationale Economique 119, 141 (2011).Google Scholar

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³⁷ See Kaldor, Mary, Terry Lynn Karl & Yahia Said, Oil Wars (2007) (describing a theory of coincidence of a new war in the so-called petro-states, including Russia).Google Scholar

³⁸ The territorial structure of Ukraine as prescribed in the Constitution of 1996 was influenced by the peculiarities of history and the constant contestation by Russia over Crimea and Sevastopol. Thus, article 133 provided that Ukraine is composed of 25 oblasts (provinces), one Autonomous Republic (Crimea), and two cities with special status (Sevastopol and Kiev). Despite Khrushchev's grant of Crimea to Ukraine, during Soviet times and beyond, Crimea and Sevastopol were also mentioned in the various Constitutions of the Soviet Union and, later, the Russian Federation.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ Ironically, its clan structure made it appear more pluralist than, for example, Russia and Belarus. See Matuszak, Slawomir, The Oligarchic Democracy: The Influence of Business Groups on Ukrainian Politics 74, 78 (2012).Google Scholar

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⁴⁴ Caveat: By taking these two oblasts (provinces/regions) and their groupings as examples I risk implying that they are the decisive forces of the conflict. Such implication is not intended. On the contrary, the choosing of these examples is not based on any sociological or political evidence of their superior significance vis-á-vis the various other regions and influence groupings around Ukraine.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Avioutskii, supra note 34.Google Scholar

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⁵² Press Release, System Capital Management, SCM's Profit-Maker (Oct. 28, 2011) (on file with the author). According to SCM it pays twice as high salaries as other companies. See id., Interview with CEO Oleg Popov, http://www.scmholding.com/en/media-centre/coverage/view/300/ (last visited Jan. 31, 2015).Google Scholar

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⁶⁷ Id.; see also paragraphs on DF group and RosUkrEnergo, the Russian-Ukrainian joint venture in natural gas.Google Scholar

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⁷⁴ Kennedy, David, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism 349 (2005).Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Cf. Anghie, Antony, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2004).Google Scholar

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⁸¹ For a cautious defense of transformative occupations and/or humanitarian interventions in failed states, (i.e. relativization of the non-intervention and non-interference rules) see Roberts, Adam, Transformative Military Occupation: Applying the Laws of War and Human Rights, 100 Am. J. Int'l L. 580 (2006).Google Scholar

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⁹⁰ In that regard, floating analysis echoes Kennedy's call for combining the principled commitment and the participation in the process of governance with pragmatism about consequences. See Kennedy, supra note 74, at 327–58.Google Scholar

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⁹² Id., pt. 26.Google Scholar

⁹³ Id., pt. 29.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Such logic can, of course, be criticized as the re-introduction of the hermeneutic Horizontenverschmelzung ideal.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Kennedy, supra note 74, at xxvi.Google Scholar

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⁹⁷ Id. at 15, 23–24, 43.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Id. at 19.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Interestingly, the Family is the relatively belated start to build a new oligarchic clan with a model that is actually based on blood relations in addition to the reliance of security police links.Google Scholar

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