Том 1 № 1 (2024)

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Browsing Том 1 № 1 (2024) by Author "Kuzio, Taras"

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    Russophilism and Misunderstanding Ukraine : Review
    (2024) Kuzio, Taras
    This critical review focuses on two new books published by Western scholars that continue to misrepresent Ukraine. Olga Onukh and Henry Gale adhere to the common misconception of Ukrainian politics as divided into "civic" and "ethnic" or "nationalist" and "pro-Russian" presidents. The negative label "ethnic" and "nationalist" is applied only to the center-right Ukrainian politics, which is merged with the nationalists into one group. East Slavic nationalism promoted by the Soviet regime, Russia and pro-Russian forces in Ukraine such as the Party of Regions is not taken into account. Steven Shulman provides a better structure of Ukrainian politics with competition between supporters of "ethnic Ukrainian" and "East Slavic" identities. Using Shulman's structure, we see that there is little difference between Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko. Onukh and Gale's basic concept that "civic" Zelensky is better than "ethnic" Poroshenko is undermined by theory, a comparative understanding of nation-states and their politics. Dominique Arel and Jesse Driscoll describe the 2014-2021 conflict in Ukraine as a "civil war", strikingly echoing Russian disinformation and the writings of Russophiles in the West. Arel and Driscoll's arguments are weakened by their selective use of Ukrainian, Russian, and Western sources (for example, very few Ukrainian opinion polls are used), the lack of field research in southeastern Ukraine, and the exaggeration of the importance of language in the identity of most Ukrainians. They do not adequately explain why the "Russian Spring" failed in six out of eight southeastern regions of Ukraine and only partially succeeded in Donbas. . Due to their poor understanding of the concept of Russian hybrid warfare, they ignore many examples of Russian intervention other than military aggression (such as disinformation, cyberwarfare, Russian political tourists posing as Ukrainians, Russian intelligence subversion, Russian artillery shelling Ukraine, and Kadyrov's forces ), which existed before the Russian invasion in August 2014.