Russia’s War against Ukraine - Ukraine’s Local Identities, Nation-building and International Agency

In her presentation and the discussion that followed, Margaryta Rymarenko highlighted three key points. First, she elaborated on the question of Ukrainian identity, which, as she argued, has changed with the ongoing war. What used to be a country where people identified with different cultures and languages (e.g. Russian or Ukrainian), is now more unified based on a shared experience of being invaded and attacked.

Second, Rymarenko analyzed identity trajectories in the recent years, which she concluded fostered the current emergence of a new Ukrainian identity. The developments and the current change are a gradual build-up, rather than a sudden miracle. In this context, she emphasized the role that the “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and the “Maidan Protests” in 2014 played in heavily influencing the current identities of Ukrainians. The current war and the “conscious choice” of many people to identify as Ukrainians are in line with a larger development, according to Rymarenko. Third, she made the point that through the war, Ukraine dramatically changed its position in the international security order. In her opinion, the country transitioned from being a security object into being an active player itself.