THE RUSSO-UKRAINIAN WAR АS АN EXAMPLE ОF А LIMINAL WAR: STAGES АND MECHANISMS ОF ESCALATION

Abstract

A political science analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian war is carried out through the prism of the concept of liminal war. It is substantiated that this concept allows, more precisely than the broader concept of hybrid war, to explain the logic of the transition from covert and semi-covert forms of confrontation to open interstate war. The stages of the transition from the stage of liminality to full-scale invasion are considered. It is established that the Russian-Ukrainian war unfolded as a sequential process that included the formation of a liminal conflict environment, a phase of partial military escalation, a break in liminality, and a transition to an open military phase. Based on the combination of D. Kilcullen's theoretical approach and the analysis of Ukrainian empirical material, key escalation mechanisms are identified: threshold manipulation, instrumentalization of uncertainty, an asymmetric combination of military and non-military means, as well as the aggressor's political and temporal calculation. It is proven that liminal war is not limited to the pre-threshold stage of the conflict, but retains its logic even after the transition to open war, manifesting itself in the informational, diplomatic, energy and psychological dimensions. The author formulates his own view of the Russian-Ukrainian war in theoretical and practical terms in the context of the concept of liminal war. The conclusion is argued on the application of the concept of liminal war to the analysis of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which allows for a more accurate description of the stages of escalation, to identify the internal logic of the transition between the phases of the war and to reveal the specifics of modern conflicts, in which not only military force is of decisive importance, but also the ability to act in the space between detection, attribution and political response.