Since 2014, Russian society has become increasingly reliant on militaristic forms of self-expression. Eban Raymond argues that Russian national identity is beset by a lack of security, and depends on defining itself in opposition to Ukraine. This has perpetuated armed aggression, making a durable peace a distant dream
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian national identity has suffered from an ontological void. Fear of uncertainty fills that void, fuelling insecurity among Russian citizens about what ‘Russia’, precisely, constitutes. These fears were precipitated by the sudden loss of a vast empire and position as a global superpower alongside the United States. President Boris Yeltsin’s neoliberal shock reforms of the 1990s only stoked further fear, and Russia has since become ‘a country of frightened people’.
In the 1990s, Russian political elites were torn between aligning with Western institutions or pursuing an alternate course. Right-wing nationalist politicians including Vladimir Zhirinovsky vowed to bring Russia ‘off its knees’. Philosopher Alexander Dugin posited Eurasianism as an ideological answer, not to what Russia was, but what it could be: a polity spanning ‘Dublin to Vladivostok’, straddling east and west. These contradictory ideas remain at the core of Russia’s national identity, long after Vladimir Putin became President in 2000.
Russia frames itself as a defender of traditional values, yet one in five women experience domestic abuse
Unlike the civic-based identities of Western democracies, Russian national identity is malleable, but accounts more for what Russia stands against than for. The country frames itself as a defender of traditional values, contrasting the ‘degenerate European Russophobes’ who are slowly eroding such values at the risk of ‘society falling apart.’
Hypocrisy abounds. This obsession with traditional values has not prevented one in five Russian women from experiencing domestic abuse. Remove the decadent west from Russia’s rhetoric and it becomes unclear what truly defines the nation.
Ukraine occupies a contradictory position within the construction of Russian national identity. It forms a central nexus that joins several different strands of identity. These strands are multifaceted, manifested through nation-building projects. In his book Lost Kingdom, historian Serhii Plokhy aptly illustrated Russian identity as a series of concentric layers. One is imperial, entailing a restoration of the Russian Empire. Another is ethnonationalist, calling for a Russia with borders that encompass all Russian speakers.
Ukraine’s centrality to this is rooted in history. It formed the heavily industrialised core of the Soviet Empire, acting as a vital enabler of Russia’s military and economic power. According to a Ukrainian census in 2001, around 14.5 million inhabitants spoke Russian. Ukraine was also the cradle of the ancient polity of the 'Kyivan Rus’, thus sharing a common ancestry that, according to Putin, inextricably binds it to Russia culturally and historically.
Russia’s national identity depends on a relationship with Ukraine that involves subordinating it to Russian interests and maintaining its self-perception as a great power
Ultimately, Russia’s national identity depends on a relationship with Ukraine that involves subordinating it to Russian interests and all forms of political, economic and cultural control. Any threat to that relationship risks undermining the central pillar of Russia’s self-perception as a great power. Just as a bully’s penchant for aggression may arise from a lack of self-worth, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has followed a similar pattern of actions driven by existential fear and uncertainty.
In 2013, the Euromaidan protests ousted Viktor Yanukovych’s government as the latter decided on closer alignment with Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union instead of the EU. Russia framed Ukraine’s choice as political and ‘against Eurasian integration’. Because Russian identity remains flexible, its various strands can be invoked in rhetoric that reflects the political situation. Once the idea of Eurasian integration crumbled, Putin initiated a discursive shift to ‘actively defend the rights of Russians.’ Shortly after, Crimea was illegally seized, precipitating an upsurge in domestic support for Putin. A Levada poll showed 70% of Russians approved of the annexation. This came at a heavy price. Russia’s national identity and ontological security – its certainty of its place in the world – relies on Ukraine remaining subordinate. Ironically, aggression has worsened that relationship.
The advent of Russia’s military involvement in the Donbas galvanised Ukrainian resistance. It narrowed the means to ensure Russian leverage over Ukrainian foreign policy. The framework suggested by the Minsk Agreements may have provided a way for Russia to paralyse Ukrainian politics by using the Donbas republics as proxies. For example, Point 11 of the Agreements called for the ‘special status’ of the Donbas to be reflected in Ukraine’s constitution, giving these republics greater sway over internal decision-making. The failure of Minsk all but removed that option of proxy influence over Ukrainian politics. Russia became locked into using ever more aggressive methods to salvage the relationship on which its identity so depended.
Was Russia’s invasion, then, the pinnacle of that escalation spiral? It is more pertinent to view the events of 2022 as a microcosm of the spiral that played out in 2014. Failure to quench Ukraine’s NATO aspirations through negotiations in December 2021 set off alarm bells in Moscow. Furthermore, unexpectedly staunch Ukrainian resistance in the invasion’s initial stages ensured that the conflict would become protracted. Putin’s statement marking the annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts in September 2022 reflected a temporary vindication of Russia’s national identity. References to the days of Imperial Russia, the ‘historical unity’ of territory and a salute to ‘Ancient Rus’ all conjure up the narratives that form the composite of that identity.
Controlling Ukraine remains an integral part of Russian identity as the Kremlin primes its citizens for perpetual conflict
Russia remains obstinate in its maximalist demands regarding current peace talks, and continues its ideational obsession with Ukraine. Through its education system, and via the normalisation of exorbitant military expenditure, the government is priming citizens to accept a state of perpetual conflict. It is therefore difficult to see how Russia could extricate itself from this nightmarish war. Zbigniew Brzeziński, a former national security advisor to the US, fittingly remarked that ‘without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire.’ Indeed, as long as controlling Ukraine remains an integral part of Russian identity, Moscow will not stop. The war, once a means, has become the end.
