title: Russia’s smart power in Crimea: sowing the seeds of trust
abstract: The purpose of this article is to determine whether a ‘dark side’ exists to Russia’s trust-building in the Black Sea region. An empirical analysis is made of whether, and how, Russia uses soft power to deter democratization by anchoring the promotion of pro-Russian separatism in Crimea to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. It is argued that despite the unavoidable methodological challenges the topic brings with it, one cannot ignore it even in academic research because of its constantly growing empiri
journal: Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies