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Abstract

The peer-reviewed work was written by the Ukrainian historians S. Vidnyanskyi and A. Martynov, who are known for their studies in the field of history of international relations and foreign relations of our country, historiography, world history, etc. The mentioned book is a significant attempt to provide a timely answer to a number of questions that are relevant in the conditions of the modern Russian-Ukrainian war, especially in the context of the full-scale phase of Russian aggression against our country. The authors analyzed the dynamics of policy changes of European, North and South American, Asian and African countries regarding the Russian- Ukrainian war of 2014–2023. The evolution of the policy of leading international institutions and integration associations, primarily the European Union, NATO, OSCE, and the UN, in relation to the Russian-Ukrainian war is also studied. The peculiarities of Ukrainian diplomacy in protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and spreading the truth about the aggression of the Russian Federation against our country, which is one of the links of global Russian aggression in spatial and temporal dimensions, are traced. Recommendations on speeding up and qualitatively filling the processes of European integration of Ukraine with content, improving Ukrainian diplomacy for peace and international security, and curbing Russian armed aggression, which is a threat to the whole world, were also formulated. The work consists of eleven chapters, which are at the same time thematic blocks containing related plots. The role of a kind of theoretical-methodological and historiographical introduction is performed in the first chapter of the work, dedicated to the review of modern scientific approaches to war as a socio-historical phenomenon. In the following chapters, the authors trace the dynamics of the policy of the United States of America and Canada regarding Russia's war against Ukraine. It also reveals the peculiarities of the attitude of China, India, Argentina, Brazil, the Republic of South Africa and some other countries of Africa, Asia and South America regarding this war in the center of Europe, shows the reasons and consequences of the policy of "neutrality" of individual countries regarding the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. The authors of the monograph processed a significant array of sources and scientific literature, and reached logical and important conclusions. Moving along the lines of research analysis from the special to the general, they came to a well-founded conclusion that in fact the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 started a global hybrid war, which they also consider the Fourth World War. The researchers also outline the geopolitical hierarchization of the world space. The monograph provides a comparative analysis of the mostly belated reaction of the world community, the leading states of the world, on the one hand, to Russian aggression against Ukraine during 2014-2022, and on the other hand, to the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation in the early 1990s against Moldova in Transnistria and its criminal wars in Chechnya, the war against Georgia in 2008, military actions in Syria and other acts of aggression by Russia. It is emphasized that the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is actually a regressive imperial war of the XXth century as an attempt to avoid the collapse of the Russian (post-Soviet) empire by force. The authors emphasize that already today, with its heroic resistance to Russian aggression, Ukraine has influenced regional and global processes as a factor shaping the geopolitical foundations of the new world order in the first half of the 21st century.