Ukraine, a country that had been independent for 30 years, has defended its sovereignty and fought to keep it free from Russia. Russia used a variety of hybrid tactics (political.economic.diplomatic.informational) throughout all this time to stop it, turn Ukraine into a satellite and to rebuild the Soviet Union. Russia decided in 2022 to add the military method, which it uses only when all other options are exhausted.
The population of Ukraine was split into pro-Russian and pro-Russian supporters before the war. This is due the history of these regions’ formation since the times the Russian Empire. This has led to the extermination the Ukrainian peasants from these territories, and then the occupation by East and North Russia. This weakened the Ukrainian national identity. Soviet ideology emphasized the need to create a new identity in order for people to identify themselves as “Soviet men.” In turn, the Russian government was striving to convert them into supporters of the “Russian World”. Since Ukraine gained independence, the Russian media’s entire ideological apparatus has worked towards this goal.
In just days, the war between Russia and Ukraine has transformed into a war against Ukrainian identity in the eyes the whole world. Despite all Russia’s efforts, the Ukrainians have now become one nation across all of their territory, from Lviv to Donbass.
Bombing of residential areas, children’s and maternity hospitals and destruction in Kharkiv are all reasons that led to the transformation and consolidation the Ukrainian nation.
Everybody sees images of the cities in Eastern and Southern Ukraine: unarmed civilians trying to stop Russian tanks entering their towns and cities, and protest rallies taking place in occupied cities like Kherson and Melitopol.
Kherson’s people refuse to eat the food that the occupiers have provided. They distribute them in central areas of the city to demonstrate their fake humanitarianism to journalists on Russian television stations.
Many Ukrainian Orthodox Churches belonging to the Russian Patriarchate have joined Ukraine’s Patriarchate.
This is the reaction of the nation, which has realized that Russia’s goal is not the federalization of Ukraine, not even its “Finnishization”, but the elimination of Ukrainians as an ethnic group and of Ukraine as a state.
It was a war for Ukrainian identity. It helped us identify ourselves, tell the world who we are, acknowledge that we are different from Russians, show how we differ, and discover who our true friends are and our enemies. For Putin it is the last chance to solve the “Ukrainian question”: suppress Ukraine and revive the Russian Empire. For Ukraine, this is the last chance to break the shackles/irons of Russian “fraternity”, from heavy ties that have been like a gallows around its neck for centuries.
Putin thought that a bloody massacre would bring fear, panic, and despair to the Ukrainian people. But it was actually the opposite. The nation seems united and has become a huge anthill. Volunteers, territorial defense, local authorities, and state authorities all work together to win. Ukraine is united against an evil, perverse and cruel enemy. Its citizens – people who had not been born in Ukraine – are highly motivated fighters and achieve great results in combat. .
At the same time, these days a new image of Ukraine is forming, its new heroes appear: the defenders of the Island of Snakes, the sapper Vitaliy Skakun, the mysterious ace of military aviation “the Specter of kyiv” and others. . Today, a new chapter is being written in history of Ukraine’s army. Meanwhile, Ukraine is now a topic of international politics. It all depends on whether Europe will continue to live in peace.