Medium Attribute of Geographical Environment in Geostrategic Intersection Area and Its Geo-Setting Effect—Taking Ukraine as an Example

The relationship between the geographical environment and international politics is the main concern in geopolitical research. The existing publications were either inclined to environmental determinism, focused on the geographical imagination constructed by subjective discourse, or investigated the elements in the geographical environment as a whole to explore their interaction with politics. Evidently, discussion is lacking on how geo-entities use the spatial (structure) differentiation of geographical environments to act on power space and their geo-setting effects. Combining theoretical construction and case analysis, this study demonstrates the medium properties of geographical environment and its difference in efficiency of transmission power by proposing the concept of "geographical medium," and clarifies the geopolitical functions of different geographical mediums. Taking Ukraine as a case, the spatial practice of geo-entities mining is revealed herein; furthermore, the role of medium properties of th