Russia-Ukraine: the noxious combination that explains the war

The objective of this article is to present empirical evidence on two propositions about the inter-state war between Russia and Ukraine. The first postulate claims that, at the very least, from 2013 to the present the Russia-Ukraine inter-state dyad has shown all the risk factors associated with the start of interstate wars. The second postulate puts forward that this war is the result of a mutation process from an internationalized intra-state war to an inter-state war. This study argues that both the risk factors and the mutation may be explained by a noxious combination: asymmetry of power between the member States par-ticipating in the conflict in the internationalized intra-state phase, with limited political power emerging in the inter-state dyad.