THE WAR IN UKRAINE IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

The war in Ukraine is the biggest, bloodiest and longest war in Europe since 1945. Its initial stage holds similarities with several other armed conflicts and wars in the last 50 years on Cyprus and in the territories of the former Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Among the cases in exYugoslavia, greatest similarity is seen with the war in Croatia (1991-1995). This conflict stemmed from two almost simultaneous breakdowns of multinational ' socialist federations' and their communist regimes that were similar in structure. The dissimilarity of the second stage of the war in Ukraine and the war in Croatia is primarily due to the processes of NATO and EU enlargement coupled with the USA's policy of using NATO enlargement and Ukraine as tools to harm and weaken Russia. The conflict about Ukraine and the promise of NATO membership given to it has become an indirect war between Russia and the US-led West, where Ukraine is the West's proxy and the main victim of the war. Like what occurred in Croatia in August 1995 and in Azerbaijan in September 2023, the final outcome of the war in Ukraine will be decided on the battlefield, not around a diplomatic table. Still, it will be very different from that in Croatia. Responsibility for the war in Ukraine and its consequences must be shared between the two direct belligerents, the co-responsible USA, and other NATO members.