‘This is Unacceptable in Europe in the 21st Century’: Time, Place and European Identity in the 2013–14 Russia–Ukraine Crisis

Abstract The 2013–2014 Russia–Ukraine crisis that started the Russian war against Ukraine is usually conceptualised as a geopolitical or international security crisis and analysed according to spatial logics. This article focuses on the underresearched chronopolitics of the crisis, arguing that in addition to a security crisis, events presented European leaders with a temporal identity crisis. The very fact that something like this could happen ‘in Europe in the 21st century’ was deemed extraordinary, challenging the EU's core legitimating narrative of Europe as a peaceful and advanced space. Drawing on timing theory from International Relations, the article analyses the frequent use of temporal language in political discourse during the crisis, such as the oft‐repeated phrase that Russia's actions were ‘unacceptable (in Europe) in the 21st century’. It casts leaders as timing agents seeking to fit events into their respective timing projects to legitimise their own actions and discredit those of others.