Russia has increasingly taken aggressive stances toward countries formerly part of its sphere of influence, known as the ‘near abroad,’ since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Scholars have debated and disagreed upon what motivates Russia’s near abroad assertions and what Russia perceives as the issues needing to be resolved by invading regions in the near abroad. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to examine Russian aggression in the near abroad with a focus on Ukraine, under the question of: how can scholars understand what the problem is represented to be in Ukraine for Putin’s Russia? Approaching this from a post-structural theoretical framework, the analysis will use Bacchi’s ‘What is the problem represented to be?’ method. This method focuses on how problems are represented and understood to be, rather than accepting problems as they are represented by the government as the truth. The analysis focuses on Putin’s speech from the eve of the invasion of Ukraine, titled “Address by the President of the Russian Federation” (APRF), which outlines his issues with Ukraine and the international community. A critical examination of this speech concludes that Putin’s Russia is aiming for a global superpower identity, similar to that of the former Soviet Union, by asserting its control over the near abroad to rival the United States. In part, this superpower identity influences its perceptions of threats in its geopolitical sphere.