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6 OUR LIFE • August 2026 percent of the vote, failed to cross the electoral threshold in 2014, and has remained nationally marginal since 2019. Nev - ertheless, russian propaganda has consistently amplified Svo- boda’s visibility to depict post-Maidan Ukraine as “fascist.” To understand contemporary Ukrainian nationalism — es- pecially in wartime — it helps to visit Ukraine, or at least to listen to Ukrainians living through the war. Although russian aggression began in 2014, its full impact has been felt nation - wide since February 24, 2022. Nearly every family has been touched — by mobilization, displacement, or death. Kremlin propaganda has long focused on Ukraine’s eastern and south- ern regions, where many russian-speaking Ukrainians live, falsely portraying them as ideologically pro-russian. Before the war, Ukraine’s population stood at roughly 44 million. Today, it is closer to 33 million. From the outside, the country is often described as divided along the Dnipro River, with a “pro-Ukrainian” west and a “pro-russian” east. This division, however, has long been a russian propaganda narrative rather than a social reality. Even the majority of rus- sian-speaking Ukrainians have never constituted a pro-russian political bloc and have consistently identified with Ukraine as a sovereign state. In everyday social life, linguistic and region - al differences were largely muted, becoming politically salient mainly during electoral cycles, when political elites actively instrumentalized identity for mobilization purposes. By targeting cities such as Odesa and smaller towns in southern and eastern Ukraine, Putin is destroying the very ur - ban centers where russian language, culture, and hybrid iden- tities were historically strongest. Odesa once stood as living evidence of Moscow’s claim to a shared civilizational space. Its bombardment reveals a central contradiction of the Krem- lin’s war: in claiming to “defend” russian culture, Moscow is dismantling the communities that embodied it. The result is not the preservation of a russophone world but its alienation. Rather than protecting russian-speaking communities — one of the stated goals of the so-called “special military opera- tion” — the invasion has accelerated their dispersal and eroded the cultural affinity with russia that once characterized them. Language, once a marker of division, no longer carries decisive political meaning. What now defines belonging is not how Ukrainians speak, but whom they trust and what they are willing to defend. In destroying the remnants of russia’s cul - tural gravity in Ukraine, the Kremlin has unintentionally consolidated the very na- tional consciousness it sought to fracture. This interpretation is supported by pan- el survey research conducted before and after the Euromaidan. Drawing on a two- wave nationwide survey (2012–2015), Grigore Pop-Eleches and Graeme Robert - son show that, even before 2014, most russian-speaking Ukrainians and ethnic russians identified Ukraine as their home- land — and this share increased signifi- cantly after Euromaidan and russia’s sub- sequent aggression. What, then, is the Kremlin’s plan? Mar - iupol offers a recent stark illustration. A city of approximately 430,000 people was effectively erased by russian forces. It was later repopulated with migrants from russia, many of whom now live in houses and apartments left behind by Ukrainian residents who fled under fire — forced to abandon their homes, possessions, and lives in a matter of hours. Paradoxically, this destruction has not produced fear but has accelerated the rise of a modern Ukrainian national idea. Rus- sian-speaking Ukrainians, long positioned at the intersection of multiple identities and shaped by processes of russification, have been pushed by russia’s use of vio- lence toward a clearer and more decisive political choice. Moscow is no longer im- agined as a cultural center or civilization- al reference point. It has been recast as a source of coercion and insecurity. In its place, Ukrainian nationalism has expanded — not as an ethnic project, but as a civic one rooted in sovereignty, digni- ty, freedom, and shared resistance. Putin appears to have expected that residents of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Odesa would greet russian tanks with flowers. Instead, Commemoration of Darya “Dasha” Lopatina at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, Kyiv.
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