THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR OF 2014 – 2026 WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE CORRELATES OF WAR RESEARCH PROJECT

Abstract. Russia’s war against Ukraine is the largest conflict of our time, which is fundamentally changing the global security system. The article proposes to study this conflict using the tools of the Correlates of War (COW) project – an international database on the history of wars and interstate conflicts. COW takes into account factors and variables that are statistically related to the war, that is, researchers analyze which factors (economic, political, demographic, etc.) correlate with the emergence of conflicts. Using the COW tools allows the analysis to be translated into objective quantitative terms, which is necessary for verifying theories of international relations in the post-bipolar period.

The purpose of the study is to theoretically understand and conceptualize the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014–2026 in the categories of the COW project, determine its typological features and systemic significance for global politics.

Methodology. The study uses the COW typology of wars, which distinguishes interstate, intrastate, extra-systemic wars, as well as wars between non-state actors. The methodological principles of the COW project (quantitative analysis of conflicts), a systemic approach, historical and comparative analysis and concepts of fourth- to sixth-generation wars, etc. are applied. This ensures a combination of theoretical assumptions of the systemic analysis of international politics with quantitative methods of conflict research, which guarantees conceptual coherence and empirical validity of the conclusions obtained.

Scientific novelty. For the first time in Ukrainian scientific discourse, the war of 2014–2026 is systematically analyzed as a case for the modernization of the COW database. The status of the full-scale armed conflict is argued to be a «war of systemic change», which goes beyond the classical models of interstate confrontation due to its multidimensionality.

Conclusions. The study demonstrates that the war meets the criteria of an interstate war, but its hybrid nature and the involvement of non-state actors create a challenge for the COW methodology. The war marked the end of the era of the liberal order and the transition to a multipolar conflict system. The need to include information and technological parameters in quantitative studies of wars of the 21st century is emphasized. This study establishes that according to the main indicators of COW, the Russian-Ukrainian war is the largest interstate and metasystemic full-scale armed conflict in Europe since 1945, which determines new rules for the functioning of the international system.

Key words: Russian-Ukrainian war, Correlates of War, interstate war, systemic break, hybrid war, multidimensional war, international security.

Submitted: 11.02.2026

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