Holesch, Adam, 1977-Zagórski, PriotrRamiro, Luis2025-03-112025-03-112024Holesch A, Zagórski P, Ramiro L. European radical left foreign policy after the invasion of Ukraine: shifts in assertiveness towards Russia. Political Res Exch. 2024;6(1):2350245. DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2024.23502452474-736Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/69909The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted a closer examination of parties’ attitudes towards the Putin regime. While research has examined the connections of the EU's far-right with Russia, less attention has been given to the stances of Radical Left Parties (RLPs). We close this gap by analysing Roll Call Votes (RCVs) in the European Parliament. Our findings indicate that RLPs displayed the lowest levels of assertiveness towards Russia before 2022, being even less assertive than other Eurosceptic groups. RLPs significantly increased their assertiveness after the invasion, bringing them closer to the EP mainstream. However, some divergence in assertiveness towards Russia existed within the RLPs before 2022 and remains relevant after the invasion, with the Traditional/Communist parties standing closer to Russia than radical New Left/Democratic Socialist parties.application/pdfeng© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2024.2350245RussiaEuropean UnionRadical left parties2022 invasion of UkraineForeign policyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess