| Summary/Abstract |
Russia has been accused of revisionism in its foreign policy, understood as an effort to undermine a ‘rules-based’ international order. This essay analyses the normative dimension of such revisionism. It examines Russian legal discourse in the period 2014–2019, based on case studies of Russian interventions in Ukraine and Syria. It finds little evidence of sustained Russian legal revisionism—an effort to modify international law—despite Russian assertion of legal exceptionalism in the CIS region. It confirms previous research that Russia has deployed legal rhetoric strategically and instrumentally. Moscow understands it cannot easily gain international support for new rules, yet still seems to aspire to revise the structure of regional power relations.
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