Justification of the Russia-Ukraine war: Jus ad bellum in the speeches of Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Abstract

In this master’s thesis I studied the justification of the Russia-Ukraine war through the speeches of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin and the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I analysed the main speeches of these two presidents from the year 2022 which addressed the Russia-Ukraine war through qualitative content analysis and just war theory’s jus ad bellum concept. Although the Russia-Ukraine war has been covered extensively, just war theory’s jus ad bellum model consisting of six categories of just cause, right intentions, legitimacy, proportionality, war as a last resort, and probability of success hasn’t been comprehensively used to analyse the war from both sides’ perspectives.

In my study I was able to adapt these jus ad bellum principles to assess the main reasons for the war, main goals of the war, legitimisation of the war, effects of the war, efforts to prevent the war, and plans to achieve peace from both Russian and Ukrainian viewpoints. Through this research it became evident that Russia’s main reason for the war was to gain control of Ukraine and force it under Russian influence, which is not a justifiable reason to start a war. Ukraine instead was protecting their nations independence and self-determination, which is a justifiable reason for a defensive war according to the principles of jus ad bellum.