Russia Against Ukraine: Russian Political Mythology and the War on Ukrainian Identity

Russia's political leadership--echoed by some external voices--often claims its invasion of Ukraine was driven by national security concerns over NATO expansion. However, this narrative does not withstand critical examination. When Russia occupied Crimea and parts of the Donbas in early 2014, Ukraine was a neutral state. Since gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine had maintained a non-aligned status, reaffirmed by a 2010 law. Despite this neutrality, Russia violated numerous international agreements, including the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, the Budapest Memorandum, and the 1997 Treaty on Friendship with Ukraine, which explicitly recognized Ukraine's territorial integrity. Exploiting Ukraine's non-membership in NATO, Moscow launched a war unseen in Europe since the Second World War. Russia's focus on NATO is not just misleading--it serves as a strategic distraction from its revisionist aims: challenging the post-Cold War order and dismantling Ukraine as a sovereign nation. Central to the latter is Ukrainophobia, a deeply rooted ideological hostility towards Ukraine, embedded in Russian geopolitical chauvinism. This collected volume explores the socio-cultural foundations and political manifestations of contemporary anti-Ukrainian sentiment within the Russian state and society. The volume's contributors are Boris Bondarev, Dmitry Dubrovskiy, Yuri Dzhibladze, Alexander Etkind, Andreas Heinemann-Grer, Andrey Kalikh, Martin Kragh, Sergei Lebedev, Alexey Levinson, Anton Shekhovtsov, Andreas Umland, and Andrew Wilson.