The Social and Political Background of the Russian– Ukrainian War, The Roots Of Ukrainian Nationalism

Abstract

For the first time since the end of World War II, a large-scale, traditional war is taking place in Europe, involving two independent countries. At the end of the third year of the Russian-Ukrainian war, I believe we can state that this conflict - regardless of its outcome – will irreversibly change Europe's security and military architecture. The Russian-Ukrainian war not only marks the end of the security policy status quo that has been established over the past decades, but in the long term, it could also evolve into a regional armed conflict involving multiple countries.

In my opinion, to understand the reason of war, we need to examine one of the fundamental elements of the Ukrainian-Russian political and military confrontation that began more than 20 years ago: Ukrainian nationalism. Independent Ukraine was established in 1991, but Ukrainian national conception has a much older history. After the 2004 "Orange Revolution", the Ukrainian political leadership broke with Moscow and set the goal of joining the EU and NATO, and then intensive nation-building began under the presidencies of Viktor Yushchenko and Petro Poroshenko. This led to the marginalization of the Russian language, culture and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate. This political direction culminated in the "Revolution of Dignity" that broke out in 2013, which removed the President Viktor Yanukovych from power, who maintained close relationship with Moscow. All these steps contributed to the souring of relations between the two countries, and then led to the outbreak of open armed conflict.

The development of the Ukrainian national idea has become one of the important shapers of European security policy. Taking all this into account, examining the historical roots, development, characteristics of Ukrainian idea, and the efforts to establish the Ukrainian nation-state helps to better understand the causes of the war’s outbreak and can contribute to the formulation of possible settlement principles.