ABSTRACT: Over the past decade, European regions have confronted a succession of major shocks, including the global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. These events, combining sudden disruptions with “slow-burning” pressures, have exacerbated spatial inequalities, positioning regional resilience at the forefront of public policy. The confluence of acute and chronic
stressors creates a complex environment that complicates mitigation efforts, particularly at regional and local levels. Consequently, addressing these challenges requires a reinterpretation of resilience grounded in a precise identification of shock sources and their impact on regional development trajectories. The aim of this analysis is to develop and implement a methodological framework for operationalizing regional resilience, specifically to categorize European Union regions based on their capacity to withstand the impacts of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. By integrating the VEC components (vulnerability, exposure, and consequences) with a multidimensional assessment encompassing social, economic, infrastructural, environmental, and institutional factors, this study adopts an evolutionary, multi-phase perspective on resilience. The results of the typology provide a basis for selecting test regions for idiographic studies aimed at identifying the process of evolutionary and transformational change in regional socio-economic systems occurring in response to the development shock in question.