The conceptual framework developed in this study integrates liminality and ontological security to examine the agency of in-between countries from a discursive standpoint. The focus lies on how these states reproduce and/or subvert hegemonic structures. The research is positioned within a postcolonial research agenda, aiming to give a voice and agency to subaltern actors, while adopting a poststructuralist epistemology that establishes a mutually constitutive link between identity and foreign policy. The various and changing constructions of the Others are thus seen as critical in both dimensions. The analytical value of the liminality framework is elaborated, both for making sense of the in-between countries in the EU’s and Russia’s shared neighbourhood and for capturing their agency, emphasising its innovative and emancipatory potential. The concept of ontological security is introduced as an additional analytical layer, in response to recent developments in the broader region. By understanding ontological security as a “security of becoming” rather than a “security of being”, it is linked to liminality as a state of indeterminacy, representing a source of potential agency and change.