Nikolai Karpitsky. War as an End in Itself: Why Does Russia Never Run Out of Volunteers Willing to Die in Ukraine?

Source: PostPravda.info 05.12..2024.
URL:https://postpravda.info/en/stories/freedom-of-speech-en/war-as-an-end-in-itself/

 

In 2022, there were expectations that if the Russian army suffered unacceptable losses, it would retreat. These expectations were not fulfilled. In the following years, there were hopes that massive manpower losses would soon leave the Russian army without the ability to continue fighting. These hopes were not fulfilled either. Now there is an expectation that, if hostilities in Ukraine cease, Russia will require at least several years to rebuild its army before launching a new war. This expectation, too, will not be fulfilled.

Russia will be ready to attack the Baltic states or Poland as soon as it frees its forces from Ukraine. At present, NATO has little to counter this.

This raises several questions:

Why does the Russian military command ruthlessly expend soldiers and remain indifferent to losses within its own army?

Why does the inflow of contract soldiers into the Russian army not decrease, despite their being mercilessly expended in suicidal assaults?

Why do Russian soldiers not rebel or surrender, but instead obediently go to their deaths when sent into senseless attacks?

Why is Russian society indifferent to enormous military losses and continues to support the war?

War as an End in Itself

We are faced with a unique historical phenomenon: a society supports a war waged against a neighboring people at the cost of the ruthless extermination of its own soldiers. Even the sick and the disabled are sent into suicidal assaults. This is possible only because a form of societal consent to meaningless death exists. Nothing comparable can be found elsewhere. Societies may, at times, accept enormous sacrifices for the sake of victory – but only when those deaths are perceived as meaningful and necessary.

Of course, one should not generalize to all Russians. In Russia, there are tens of millions of people who oppose the war and support Ukraine. However, they are fragmented and do not constitute a collective political subject. By societal consent to meaningless death, I mean a balance of forces within society that makes possible mass support for war as an end in itself – war for the sake of war. I identify two preconditions for such consent.

“The State of Death”: A Social Anti-System in Russia

The first precondition is socio-historical in nature. It was articulated by the Russian historian Dmitry Savromat (Chernyshevsky), who emigrated to Uruguay, in discussions on his personal YouTube channel Total War and History. There, he proposed an interpretation of Russia as a military power – an “Empire of People’s Suffering.”

To become an empire, a state must possess some advantage over its rivals. The Tsardom of Muscovy had no such advantage except one: the ruthless expenditure of human life to achieve the goals of those in power. Nothing comparable existed elsewhere, even in the most brutal empires.

The treatment of one’s own population as a disposable resource has persisted throughout Russian history and made it possible to achieve victories through sheer numbers, without regard for losses. Poverty and the absence of rights are necessary conditions for the functioning of such a state system, which has condemned it to permanent scientific and technological backwardness. Today, however, we are witnessing the degeneration of this cruel system into something even more horrific – a “state of death,” or an “anti-system” (a term Dmitry Savromat borrows from Lev Gumilev).

According to Savromat, the Russian “anti-system” devours itself and leads to death. This is manifested in an “economy of death,” in which revenues from the sale of oil and gas are exchanged for payments to the families of the dead and for the enrichment of those who profit from their deaths. As a result, a powerful social base of support for both the regime and the war has formed.

This base includes representatives of the repressive apparatus – the so-called siloviki – who fear being sent to the front themselves and therefore carry out even the most insane orders without question. They outnumber those fighting against Ukraine by roughly ten to one, which makes any mass protest within Russia virtually impossible.

It also includes the “plebs”: the impoverished population of depressed regions, into which money has begun to flow for the first time because of the war. For them, the end of the war would mean the cessation of these cash inflows and the return from the front of criminals who know nothing how to do except kill. It is precisely this milieu that ensures a constant inflow of volunteers into the army – people who sign contracts not only for the money, but also because they see it as their only chance to rise from the social bottom.

As Dmitry Savromat explains, throughout the entire history of the Russian army, soldiers have been regarded as expendable material. However, within the “anti-system” that has now taken shape in Russia, a new factor has emerged: sending soldiers to their deaths has become profitable. Contract soldiers arrive accompanied by large sums of money. One option is to keep such a soldier in the rear in exchange for a bribe; another is, on the contrary, to send him to his death and report it later in order to continue receiving payments in his name. The more frequently personnel are rotated, the more opportunities arise to profit from them.

Thus, an army system has formed that exterminates its own soldiers first and only then the enemy’s. In Russian society, volunteers are not regarded with sympathy, which is why society is largely insensitive to military losses. For the state, the deaths of soldiers at the front also reduce the social burden: the dead do not require medical treatment or long-term social support.

The Foundation of the Social “Anti-System”: A Worldview in Which Good and Evil Are Reversed

The second precondition for supporting war as an end in itself is a particular attitude toward life that shapes patterns of behavior in Russian society – or, more precisely, a particular attitude toward death. It has an existential character and is formed on the basis of a worldview in which any phenomenon or event is explained by the presence of an enemy who embodies primordial evil. In relation to such an enemy, all moral constraints are lifted. Any good deed toward the enemy is considered evil, and any evil deed good. For the bearer of this worldview, all notions of value, goodness, and justice are inverted: amorality is treated as a virtue, and atrocities as a benefit.

History shows that such a worldview tends to emerge when a community finds itself in an alien cultural environment or fails to adapt in time to rapid changes in the world. In other words, its condition of emergence is the perception of the surrounding world as alien. Two variants of this worldview have arisen, embodying two different emotional dispositions: Manichaeism and Gnosticism.

Manichaeism proceeds from the idea that our bright world has become mixed with a world of primordial evil and that, therefore, we are doomed to eternal struggle. Gnosticism, by contrast, proceeds from the idea that our world was created by mistake or by the will of an evil god; therefore, everything in it is meaningless, there is no distinction between good and evil deeds, and hence no point in resisting evil. On the basis of these two outlooks, various doctrines and quasi-religious teachings have emerged; most often, however, they have generated destructive tendencies within existing religions – most notably Christianity and Islam.

The ruthless attitude of the Russian authorities toward their own population led to the emergence of a Manichaean disposition within Orthodoxy. One symptom of this disposition was the seventeenth-century church schism over ritual disagreements which, from the perspective of Greek Orthodoxy, were not even worthy of attention. In Russia, however, the ferocity of the schism led to collective self-immolations. Clearly, the issue was not the ritual differences themselves, but the perception of the surrounding world as alien and hostile.

In terms of values, Manichaeism is the opposite of Christianity, and therefore of Orthodoxy as well. When the Bolsheviks launched their struggle against religion, they embodied in their doctrine of class struggle the Manichaean attitude toward life that Orthodoxy had previously restrained – however imperfectly – like a leaky dam. The Bolsheviks saw their mission as liberating the world from exploitation – that is, from evil – and establishing a just society – that is, a kingdom of good. Moral obligations applied only to those who were close in class terms; toward enemies, everything was permitted. This logic served as a justification for mass repression.

However, communist ideology had two sides. First, there was ruthless class struggle against enemies; second, there was a utopia of a just society – a bright future, the conquest of space, progress, and the like. With the onset of the era of oil-fueled prosperity, class struggle became less relevant, and society fell asleep in a utopian dream, believing it lived in the freest and most humane country – until the collapse in oil prices woke it up.

The ideology of class struggle gave rise to social necrophilia, which was reflected even in Soviet symbolism. Yet class struggle was waged for higher goals, albeit false ones – for the sake of establishing justice and happiness – which fully corresponded to a Manichaean worldview. Today, however, a different mood prevails in Russia. There is no longer faith in either the future or justice. Although Western countries are regarded as hostile, one’s own country has also become alien. There is no longer a bright idea worth fighting for.

Of course, people differ, and in Russia as elsewhere they think and feel in different ways, so it would be impermissible to generalize about all Russians. But the issue here is not the population as a whole; it is the dominant mood that determines the course of social life. This mood no longer corresponds to a Manichaean worldview, but rather to a Gnostic one. Since everything is perceived as meaningless, there is no difference between doing good and doing evil. All that remains is to acknowledge this meaninglessness of life, do whatever one wishes, and then die just as meaninglessly. Thus, social necrophilia in today’s Russia is grounded not in a Manichaean worldview, as in the Soviet Union, but in a Gnostic sense of the world.

Gnostic Fatalism Among Russian Soldiers at the Front

But if everything is meaningless, why do people join the army to fight against Ukraine? Let us imagine an ordinary person from a depressed region. There are no jobs, there are constant conflicts at home, and in the eyes of those around him he is nobody – an empty space. This produces a feeling of personal insignificance, as if one does not truly exist. The most difficult part is having to expend all one’s strength merely to sustain existence in a world that appears meaningless – for example, earning money only to return to a home filled with constant quarrels.

Of course, it is easier to escape into alcohol or drugs. Such a condition suppresses the instinct of self-preservation, and death is no longer perceived as an evil, since the distinction between good and evil has lost its meaning. The simpler the world, the less effort is required to live in it – and war and death make the world precisely simpler. This is the necrophilic mood rooted in a Gnostic worldview.

And so such a person is offered the chance to go to war in Ukraine. By default, he accepts Russian propaganda as truth, although in reality he does not care who is responsible for the war. What matters to him is something else: a sense of his own significance and impunity. He is promised that if he survives, he will be respected as a veteran. In simple terms, he – someone whom everyone had previously regarded as a nobody – will be able to commit acts of arbitrariness, and others will be forced to reckon with him. But for that, he must be ready both to kill and to die.

A psychologically healthy person would hardly agree to this. But in a Gnostic state of mind, in which the instinct of self-preservation is suppressed and the distinction between good and evil has collapsed, agreement comes easily. There are tens of millions of such people in Russia, which is why the flow of volunteers into the Russian army does not run dry.

There was social necrophilia in the Soviet Union as well, but of a different kind: there, people went to kill and die for an idea, whereas in today’s Russia they do so for the opportunity to exercise arbitrary power. If everything is meaningless, then no moral constraints remain – not only in relation to others, but even in relation to one’s own people. This Gnostic form of social necrophilia is accompanied by Gnostic fatalism.

A Ukrainian officer I know once referred to this as “Russian fatalism” after being struck by wartime footage showing two Russian soldiers squatting down to smoke. At that moment, one of them had his head blown off by shrapnel. The other did not even flinch and calmly finished his cigarette.

Fatalism takes different forms. There is Stoic fatalism, in which a person accepts their fate but still acts honestly, in accordance with rational nature and participation in universal Reason – or in God. What we are dealing with here, however, is something entirely different: a Gnostic fatalism in which a person sees no meaning in life and has come to terms with death – both their own and that of others whom they have come to kill in a foreign country. In place of God there is a black hole that sucks meaning out of existence. It is precisely this fatalism that drives Russian soldiers to march into senseless, suicidal assaults instead of rebelling against commanders who profit from their deaths.

Can the Russian Army Be Stopped?

History repeats itself. When Russia has won wars, it has done so through sheer numbers; when it has lost, it has done so because of technological backwardness. Neither Ukraine nor Europe possesses a mechanism for mobilizing the inhabitants of depressed regions in a comparable way, so the numerical balance of forces will continue to shift in Russia’s favor. Of course, NATO’s militaries are far more technologically advanced and, in the event of a war with Russia, could inflict colossal damage. But what happens after NATO’s high-tech weapons are depleted, while the Russian army continues to be replenished by volunteers?

It is already evident that military strategies for confronting Russia must be rewritten with this distinctive mode of warfare in mind. I very much hope that the development of drones and artificial intelligence will gradually replace soldiers on the battlefield, just as the development of robotics displaced workers in industrial production. In that case, Russia would lose its only real advantage over more technologically advanced societies.

A professional contract army could have become a formidable force; however, within the anti-system that has taken shape in Russia, it can only degenerate. The money that contract soldiers bring with them into the army fuels corruption and drug trafficking within the Russian military, which remains operational only because the constant influx of fresh manpower continues to compensate for these processes of internal decay. For this reason, Ukraine must be supported so that it can withstand this most dangerous period – defending not only itself, but Europe as a whole, from further Russian aggression.

Nikolai Karpitsky. Russia Lives in a Looking-Glass World. There, it is already at war with the West

Translation from Russian: Postimees.ee 12.11.2025.
URL: https://rus.postimees.ee/8359583/mnenie-esli-rossiya-reshit-napast-na-strany-baltii-my-uznaem-ob-etom-zaranee-no-ne-ot-analitikov

Russia continues to retain the initiative and achieve successes on the battlefield not only because of its own actions, but also because both Ukraine and Western countries repeatedly find themselves unprepared for each new round of military escalation in Europe. Four such rounds can be identified: the occupation of Crimea (2014), the invasion of eastern Ukraine (2014), the full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022), and the transition to a war of attrition (2023). Will there be a fifth round of military escalation – an invasion of the Baltic states?

Common Sense Is Inapplicable to the Analysis of Russia’s Actions

At each stage, Russia could have been stopped. In 2014, Russia was not yet ready for a full-scale war, but the West, instead of providing military assistance to Ukraine, pushed it toward capitulation within the framework of the Minsk process. The Russian army as it existed in 2022 could not threaten the West and was defeated in Ukraine; however, the West failed to seize this opportunity and allowed the conflict to turn into a prolonged war of attrition – for which Ukraine was also unprepared.

Today, the balance of military power has shifted in Russia’s favor, and once it completes a large-scale reform of its armed forces, Europe’s military lag will grow even greater.

Professional analysts, the broader public, and political leadership – both in Ukraine and in the West – have all made misjudgments because they assumed the applicability of common sense: the belief that political actors understand their own interests in light of reality and act accordingly. War is disadvantageous not only from the standpoint of Russia’s interests, but even from the perspective of the narrow, self-serving interests of Russia’s ruling elites.

From the standpoint of common sense, it seemed that Putin would not start a war, since he already possessed everything he could want: enormous revenues from hydrocarbon exports, vast international influence, unchallenged personal power, and an economically dependent Ukraine. What sense was there in risking everything by launching a war that could bring only losses?

Any assessment of events – whether at the level of everyday assumptions or scholarly analysis – is always made within a particular worldview. It may seem obvious that people do not want war; yet we observe that the flow of volunteers into the Russian army has not dried up, nor do we see mass condemnation of the war within Russia. Without this passive support, Russia would not be able to sustain the war for so long. Support for the war is explained by the fact that Putin’s worldview has already taken hold in the mass consciousness of Russian society.

The Worldview of the Soviet and Russian Looking-Glass Reality

There are two types of worldviews.

1. A worldview adequate to reality. This type is based on the principle of correspondence to reality itself. For example, the physical worldview is grounded in correspondence with the results of observation and experiment, while the worldview of contemporary Western politicians is based on aligning actions and beliefs with economic and political interests.

2. A worldview detached from reality. Here, the truth of any judgment is tested not by its correspondence to reality, but by its correspondence to the worldview itself. If facts cannot be fitted into it, they are ignored. Such a worldview must be internally coherent in order to replace reality.

In the first case, human consciousness is directed toward reality itself; in the second, toward an image of reality. Let us draw an analogy. Some operating systems work directly with a computer as a physical device; others operate through a virtual machine – an image of that computer created in a virtual environment.

At first glance, such an operating system may appear to function independently of the physical computer; however, if the hardware fails, the entire virtual environment ceases to function as well. Something similar happens in the social realm.

A worldview detached from reality may be entirely fantastical, as in the case of the “Flat Earth Society,” or it may mirror reality and, for that very reason, be sufficiently coherent to compete with a worldview that is adequate to reality. The coherence of the Soviet looking-glass worldview was ensured by the fact that it systematically reflected external phenomena while reversing their meanings: what was considered unacceptable everywhere else in the world was deemed necessary in the Soviet system, and vice versa.

Freedom of enterprise was portrayed as exploitation, while a one-party dictatorship was presented as popular rule; Soviet censorship was framed as freedom of speech, while freedom of speech in the West was described as manipulation of public opinion, and so on.

However, the fact that the standard of living of ordinary people in the West was significantly higher than in the Soviet Union did not fit into the Soviet worldview at all, so people were simply deceived about it. When, amid an economic crisis, they gained the opportunity to compare their own lives with life in the West, the coherence of the Soviet worldview collapsed – and with it, the Soviet Union itself.

Russian propaganda appears looser and more eclectic than Soviet propaganda, but precisely for that reason it is able to ignore contradictions and incorporate almost any fact into its looking-glass worldview.

Within the Russian looking-glass reality, as the evaluation of facts changes, the facts themselves appear to change as well. For example, Ukraine’s independence is first portrayed as an evil and a threat to Russia; then, in accordance with this assessment, Russia’s attack on Ukraine is perceived as a “response,” as if Ukraine had struck first. In this way, Russia’s own aggression is attributed to the victim.

In the first weeks of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians were shocked by the fact that the Russian army was deliberately striking residential neighborhoods – but even more shocking was that their close relatives not only refused to believe them, but also imposed their own interpretation: “This is all for your sake! Just wait – our troops will soon liberate you from the Nazis!”

Stalinists preserved the integrity of their worldview either by denying facts or by assigning them the opposite meaning. In response to publications about the scale of Stalinist repression, they would say either, “That never happened!” or, “There wasn’t enough of it – they should have shot even more!”

In the Russian mass consciousness, these two principles operate simultaneously: on the one hand, eyewitness testimony from the war is denied; on the other, the war itself is evaluated positively. As a result, the looking-glass worldview of such Russians is so robust that it is virtually impossible to persuade them otherwise. That is why most Ukrainians consider communication with them pointless.

In the Russian Looking-Glass Reality, the Baltic States Are an Outpost of Western Civilization

While a rational person reacts to an event directly, a bearer of the Russian mass consciousness reacts only after the event has been reflected in the looking-glass worldview. That is, the thought process is triggered not at the moment a person learns new facts, but when those facts receive a new interpretation within that worldview. This delay in reaction is always noticeable and makes such a person recognizable, even if they attempt to pass as rational.

For the same reason, Russia will not attack a country until Russian propagandists place it at the center of the Russian looking-glass – into the position reserved for the enemy. At present, that position is occupied by Ukraine.

In the Russian worldview, the Baltic states are portrayed as an outpost of Western civilization on what is perceived as Russia’s historical territory. Therefore, an attack on them would be supported by Russian society in much the same way as the attack on Ukraine. However, at the moment, the Baltic states remain on the periphery of Russian propaganda, making an attack on them in the near future unlikely – although military preparations for such a scenario continue.

Before any attack, the Russian information space must begin talking about Lithuanian, Latvian, or Estonian “Nazis.” This propaganda-induced delay makes it possible to recognize Russia’s next military aggression in advance. To assess the real threat of a new war in time, it is pointless to analyze Russia’s economic conditions or political interests, since the actions of the Russian authorities do not follow the logic of rational actors. Instead, one must monitor processes within Russian mass consciousness.

Nikolai Karpitsky. Russian Myths about the Residents of Donbas. Why does Putin’s Empire need Lies?

Source: PostPravda.info 17.12.2025
URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/propaganda/narratives-about-the-residents-of-donbas/

The Russian imperial mindset reproduces aggressive myths about the residents of Donbas, which Kremlin propaganda has shaped into a holistic system of narratives used to justify the war against Ukraine. These narratives continue to circulate in the public consciousness even without the direct involvement of propaganda and are already influencing the decisions of people not only in Russia but also beyond its borders. Exclusively for PostPravda.Info, Nikolai Karpitsky commented on the most widespread of these myths, drawing on his own observations of life in Donbas.

 

Whom did the residents of Donbas support after the victory of the Maidan in 2014?

Myth. After the victory of the Maidan in 2014, the residents of Donbas opposed the authorities in Kyiv and called for Russia’s help.

Premise of the myth. Pro-Russian rallies took place in Donetsk.

Commentary. Despite provocations and violence from pro-Russian supporters, mass demonstrations for the unity of Ukraine were held in Donetsk in parallel with the pro-Russian rallies in the spring of 2014. On March 5, 2014, between 5,000 and 15,000 people gathered in Donetsk’s central square under Ukrainian flags “in defense of Ukraine’s unity.” There were provocations and attacks on demonstrators. On March 13, 2014, between 500 and 1,000 people took part in a pro-Ukraine rally in the center of Donetsk. The rally ended in bloody violence from pro-Russian activists. On April 17, 2014, between 3,000 and 5,000 people gathered for a rally called “With Prayer for Ukraine” in Donetsk’s Victoria Park, which passed relatively peacefully.

Most of Donbas’s churches also spoke out in favor of Ukraine’s unity. On February 25, 2014, the Interfaith Council of Churches of Donetsk and Donetsk Region launched an interfaith prayer marathon titled “For Peace, Love, and the Integrity of Ukraine.” Every day in the center of Donetsk, collective prayers were held with the participation of representatives of Orthodox Church, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam. The marathon continued until August 2014, when a series of arrests of participants forced them to leave the square.

Myth. The residents of Donbas voted for independence from Ukraine in the 2014 referendum.

Premise of the myth. On April 7, 2014, pro-Russian militants in Donetsk proclaimed the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”, and on May 11, 2014, they organized a “referendum” in support of their decision. It seems many people took part in the referendum, but the actual number of voters cannot be verified.

Commentary. The “referendum” organized by pro-Russian militants was both illegal – since it had no legal basis – and illegitimate – since there was no civic consensus regarding its conduct. A genuine referendum presupposes prior public discussion, which in this case was completely absent. Therefore, in terms of its organization, it was not a referendum but rather a public opinion poll. Moreover, many participants did not understand what exactly they were voting for, each person interpreting the question in their own way. Participation in this event created only the illusion of having influence over the situation – a result of a psychological defense mechanism against fear of the future. For many, this was the only reason to come to the so-called “referendum.”

Who is responsible for terrorizing the residents of Donbas?

Myth. After the victory of the Maidan in 2014, the new authorities in Kyiv began repressions against the residents of Donbas, which led to the struggle for separation from Ukraine.

Premise of the myth. Propagandistic disinformation spread in the media that was never confirmed.

Commentary. There are no recorded cases of ideologically motivated torture or killings of Donbas residents committed by supporters of Ukraine’s unity, whereas numerous examples exist of such acts committed by pro-Russian forces.

The first act of large-scale ideological violence occurred on March 13, 2014, when participants of a pro-Russian rally attacked demonstrators advocating for Ukraine’s unity, injuring several dozen people and killing a 22-year-old man, Dmytro Chernyavsky. On May 24, 2014, militants destroyed the prayer marathon tent, and one of its participants – Serhii Kosyak, pastor of the Donetsk Evangelical Church Assembly of God – was temporarily detained and beaten. On July 4, 2014, the pro-Russian group known as the “Russian Orthodox Army” captured another participant of the marathon, Father Tykhon Kulbaka, a Greek Catholic priest. Suffering from diabetes and deprived of medication, Father Tykhon spent 12 days in captivity, was tortured, and survived only by miracle. On June 8, 2014, in Sloviansk, pro-Russian militants under the command of Igor Girkin (Strelkov) abducted, brutally tortured, and executed four members of the Pentecostal church Transfiguration of the Jesus: two deacons – Viktor Bradarsky and Volodymyr Velychko – and two sons of the church’s pastor – Ruvym and Albert Pavenko. On August 8, 2014, pastor and prayer marathon participant Oleksandr Khomchenko was kidnapped and tortured for four days. His health never recovered, and he died on February 14, 2018. There are many more such detailed cases, though far from all of them were ever reported in the media.

Myth. Ukraine shelled the residents of Donbas for eight years.

Premise of the myth. Stories from Donbas residents claiming that Ukraine shelled them.

Commentary. The pro-Russian forces in Donbas could conduct hostilities only with full supply and technical support from Russia, and it was precisely this factor that caused the fighting to continue. At the same time, there are two main reasons why, before the full-scale invasion, artillery exchanges along the front line often resulted in shells hitting residential areas – including instances of “friendly fire.” First, during such exchanges, both sides actively maneuvered to avoid return fire and often fired “preemptively” in order to cover presumed enemy positions. Second, both sides used artillery shells and multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) missiles that had exceeded their service life, which frequently led to deviations from the calculated trajectory and unpredictable impacts. Many eyewitness accounts are based on arbitrary generalizations – when all shelling is attributed to the side that the witness does not support.

In addition to accidental destruction, there were also deliberate provocations carried out by pro-Russian armed groups to maintain a certain level of combat activity, since their material support depended on it.

Ukraine, for its part, introduced a special legal regime for the “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) zone, which defined rules of service and legal guarantees for military personnel. Russia, however, did not establish a comparable legal framework: payments for participation in combat were issued as bonuses for “special service conditions.” Thus, pro-Russian formations had a financial incentive to maintain the intensity of hostilities – including through shelling of civilians – to provoke return fire.

The tactic of total urban destruction during assaults began to be used by the Russian side in Donbas only after the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. The Ukrainian side has never employed such tactics.

Political Traditions of Donbas Residents

Myth. The majority of Donbas residents have always voted for pro-Russian parties, which proves their desire to be with Russia rather than with Ukraine.

Premise of the myth. In the October 26, 2014 parliamentary elections, the Opposition Bloc – considered pro-Russian – won 38.9% of the vote in Donetsk Oblast. In second place was Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc with 18.2%, and in third – the Communist Party of Ukraine with 10.2%. In single-member districts of Donetsk Oblast, former members of the Party of Regions, considered pro-Russian, often won. In the July 21, 2019 parliamentary elections, the Opposition Platform – For Life, also regarded as pro-Russian, won 41.77% of the vote.

Commentary. These elections did not reflect pro-Russian sentiments, but rather a desire for compromise with Russia – so that people would not have to fear war and could freely visit relatives in the occupied territories. Residents of Donetsk Oblast generally accepted the local political discourse they were familiar with and, within that framework, chose those who in their view held a moderate position. This reflected a utopian dream of restoring a borderless space, as it had been in the Soviet Union. The full-scale invasion has shown many residents of Donbas the utopian nature of their dream of an “open” common space.

The Identity of Donbas Residents and the Influence of Russian Ideology

Myth. The residents of Donbas want to be part of Russia because they consider themselves Russians.

Premise of the myth. This myth was created by Russian propaganda based on the arbitrary generalization of individual attitudes.

Commentary. Historically, local identity has prevailed in Donbas – people tend to identify with their native village or community rather than with a nation. Soviet ideology imposed identification with an artificial collective identity – that of the “Soviet people.” What remains of it today is merely nostalgia for a shared, borderless space where friends and relatives once lived. Just as the dominance of communist beliefs in the Soviet period did not change the identity of Donbas residents, the spread of pro-Russian sentiment also could not transform it or create any genuine Russian or Russian-state identity.

Many Donbas residents still maintain a local identity and evaluate both Ukraine and Russia from the standpoint of what each can offer them. Under the influence of powerful Russian propaganda, some of the population supports Russia – but since the invasion, the number of such people has decreased. Their orientation is more ideological than national: they still do not perceive themselves as Russians. At the same time, the war in Donbas has accelerated the development of Ukrainian civic identity, while volunteerism and the emergence of internally displaced persons have strengthened it and fostered connections between regions.

Thus, there is no ethnic division in Donbas – all are united by local identity, which is becoming the foundation for a new Ukrainian civic community.

Myth. The residents of Donbas are oppressed for Russian language.

Premise of the myth. This is purely Russian propaganda, entirely disconnected from reality.

Commentary. For the majority of Donbas residents, language has never been a marker of identity – neither local nor Ukrainian. They see no problems related to language, they perfectly understand Ukrainian, and in everyday life they speak Russian or surzhyk (a mixed Ukrainian-Russian spoken language). Although not everyone can write in standard Ukrainian, this is primarily an educational issue, which is being addressed: young people in Donbas now know Ukrainian much better than the older generation. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the importance of the Ukrainian language has grown, and it is increasingly used in communication.

Myth. The residents of Donbas support Russia despite powerful Ukrainian propaganda.

Premise of the myth. The residents of Donbas trust Russian television channels more than Ukrainian ones.

Commentary. Before the start of the full-scale invasion, a significant portion of Donbas residents indeed trusted Russian TV channels – this can be explained by several factors.

First, unlike Russia, where political propaganda is centralized, Ukraine’s media space is chaotic and diverse, making it difficult for people – accustomed since Soviet times to a single, unified television narrative – to navigate. Russian propaganda felt more familiar to them because it resembled Soviet media rhetoric.

Second, Russia’s influence in the Ukrainian media space remained even after the war in Donbas began. Until February 2021, several Ukrainian TV channels were under the control or influence of Viktor Medvedchuk, a politician close to Putin – including 112 Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK.

Third, Russian propaganda skillfully exploited the fact that the formation of national self-awareness in Ukraine’s regions developed unevenly. Many residents of Donbas retained nostalgia for an open, borderless space – once associated with the Soviet Union, and now projected onto Russia.

All this led to a situation in which a significant part of the Donbas population came under the influence of Russian propaganda – just as it had once been influenced by Soviet ideology. However, this ideological dependence did not change their true identity – neither during the Soviet period nor today – because the nature of identity is fundamentally different from that of ideology.

Ideology requires only external agreement with a particular position, whereas identity is a form of self-awareness. One can renounce an ideology as an externally imposed viewpoint – just as happened during the collapse of the USSR, when many former communists became democrats. But one can renounce an identity only through deep personal transformation.

Russian leaders are incapable of changing or even understanding another people’s identity. They operate on the false assumption that any Ukrainian who temporarily falls under the influence of their ideology automatically becomes a “Russian,” which supposedly grants them the right to occupy the territory where that person lives. However, despite the fact that many residents of Donetsk have indeed been influenced by Russian ideology, the majority firmly oppose the inclusion of Donbas into Russia and are outraged by any talk of “territorial exchanges” as a means to achieve a ceasefire.

Nikolai Karpitsky. The Ideological Concept of Russian Culture Amid the War: What Should We Do with It?

Source: PostPravda.info 10.12.2025
URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/freedom-of-speech-en/ideological-concept-of-russian-culture/

The editor-in-chief of PostPravda.Info, Petr Kashuvara, asked me to address a difficult question: how should we relate to Russian culture today, from the perspective of the war that Russia is waging against Ukraine? I am writing primarily for a European and American audience – Ukrainians, I suspect, need no additional explanations. They already understand everything. This is not an easy subject to write about. I grew up in Siberia and for many years contributed to Russian culture through my philosophical work. Now I have consciously chosen the side of Ukraine. As I began drafting this article, news arrived of a missile strike on a residential building in Ternopil: around a hundred wounded, thirty-three killed, six of them children. At such a moment, it is difficult to reason calmly – but I will try nonetheless.

The Ukrainian Position on Russian Culture in Light of the War

After all the crimes Russia has committed, any representation of it – in sports, science, or culture – is unacceptable to Ukrainians. In the context of a war of annihilation, no other attitude could have emerged. A different question, however, is how Europeans, who continue to live normal and peaceful lives, should relate to Russian culture. History has known many states that waged wars of extermination and committed monstrous crimes, yet we do not reject the cultures of those societies.

Cultural creativity requires freedom, and the Russian state has, throughout its history, remained in conflict with culture, compelling creative people to serve state ideology. At best, one was offered a choice between obscurity in poverty and state recognition; at worst, between freedom and the Gulag. As a result, many tried to adapt to the authorities, sacrificing both creative freedom and personal conviction. In this way, culture became ideologically mobilized – transformed into an instrument of war.

One can draw the following analogy. Every person is a unique individual, yet if Russia drafts him into an army sent to kill Ukrainians, he will be regarded as an enemy. Since Russia is waging an ideological war and has mobilized Russian culture for that purpose, attitudes toward that culture in Ukraine will likewise be hostile.
 

Soviet Culture as an Instrument of Ideological War

Even in peacetime the Soviet Union lived in a state of ideological war, and school education was fully subordinated to its aims. Teachers expected from us not so much an understanding of the artistic design as the ability to extract the “correct” ideological subtext: to explain what views a character expresses and what position the author takes. Today the ideological concept has changed – instead of Soviet culture we now have Russian culture – but the essence remains the same. Russia uses this concept as ideological weaponry in the war against Ukraine. In turn, Ukrainians reject Russian culture, and this is a fact of the logic of a war for survival. However, I see a path in destroying this ideological weapon itself through the deconstruction of the concept of culture.

Culture is a space for the creative self-realization of the individual based on the highest values. A society in which everything is regulated only by social norms unrelated to cultural values is the society of our closest relatives in the animal world – chimpanzees. If we live only in accordance with social instincts, we will return to a primitive state.

During my school years, it seemed to me that the Soviet system instilled higher values that restrained the primitive social instincts of students. But already in the upper grades I realized I was mistaken. The Soviet system did not offer values; it offered ideological directives intended to manipulate social instincts. By the time I entered the philosophy faculty, I understood that these directives would not allow me to teach philosophy or publish my own works.

For me, philosophy is the embodiment of personal life experience addressed to what is eternal and universal. I sought this in Russian, German, Indian, Chinese, and other philosophical traditions. However, the Soviet system allowed only Marxist philosophy, effectively prohibiting any other way of thinking. Writers, artists, film directors, and scholars in the humanities experienced a similar conflict with the Soviet system. Many compromised – and in doing so killed their own talent.

When we watch brilliant films or read outstanding literary works of the Soviet era, we usually do not think about the difficult struggle that creative people waged against the norms of Soviet society in order to preserve small islands of free cultural space. Very often this struggle ended in defeat, and then authors mutilated their works, adapting them to ideological directives. Genuine cultural creativity exists in the dimension of “the personal – the universal.” The Soviet system, however, saw in culture only “socially significant” content, thereby substituting culture with its imitation in the form of an ideological construct.
 

The Ideological Concept of Russian Culture

The collapse of the Soviet Union opened for me the possibility of teaching philosophy and publishing. Censorship was banned, and access to cultural heritage was free. In those years I believed that Russia would become a normal democratic country – like Poland or Ukraine. But when, in the first parliamentary elections, a party of imperial and chauvinistic orientation won, I realized that the prospect of fascism was entirely real. When the first Russo-Chechen war began, it became clear that we had to fight with all our strength to prevent the rise of a fascist dictatorship. And when the second war began, I understood that we had lost, and that Russia no longer had a future.

In the early 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed enormous respect in society for having survived and preserved the religious tradition during the years of Soviet rule. However, I noticed that each generation of students regarded the ROC a little worse than the previous one, and within twenty years deep respect had turned into total rejection: young people increasingly saw that the Church was offering not religion but religious ideology.

Similar changes occurred in my own attitude toward Russian culture. At first, I perceived it as a space of free creativity untouched by communist ideology. I considered Russian nationalists who justified their imperial claims with the idea of a “great Russian culture” to be fringe figures. Ten years later it turned out that my understanding of culture – as existing in the dimension of “the personal – the universal” – had itself become marginal, while an ideological, imperial understanding of Russian culture had solidified in the public consciousness. Today this ideological construct has become a weapon of war against Ukraine and, in the long run, against all of European civilization.
 

Deconstructing the Concept of Russian Culture

For Ukrainians who are resisting both military and ideological aggression, any form of representation of Russia is unacceptable. But how should representatives of other European nations, who are not currently at war, relate to Russian culture? – It is obvious that any cultural programs that in one way or another represent present-day Russia as a state must be curtailed: the activities of Russian cultural centers (“Russian Houses”), the Russkiy Mir Foundation, Rossotrudnichestvo, Rosconcert, and similar institutions. But is that enough? – I believe that a consistent deconstruction of the ideological concept of Russian culture in the public consciousness is also necessary.

It is impossible to carry out such a deconstruction without losses, and this means that we will have to stop speaking about a Russian cultural tradition. However, this should in no way affect one’s personal attitude toward creators, toward the authors of cultural works. It is simply that this attitude should not depend on ideological directives or on any particular conceptualization of culture. For this, it is enough not to evaluate a writer or artist from a social or political standpoint and to stop searching in their work for the “correct” or “hostile” ideological position.

From the perspective of the Soviet school, I am committing the principal sin: I view cultural creativity in the dimension of “the personal – the universal,” without looking back at its ideological burden or its social significance. Perhaps in the conditions of the ideological war unleashed by Russia, someone might even accuse me of “desertion.” But only in this way can one avoid resembling the enemy – defeat the dragon without becoming a dragon oneself.

I do not expect a cultural creator to be a teacher of life, a moral exemplar, or a bearer of the “correct” ideological stance. Creators are people just like everyone else: with their weaknesses, prejudices, and selfishness. Their only difference is that they wage a struggle for a space of personal creativity, free from the dictates of social instincts. And not all of them manage to preserve this freedom. Many compromise with the demands of power or society, and thereby destroy their talent. Nothing can be done: such is the thorny path of all cultural creativity within society.

And since a misanthropic dictatorship has become established in Russian society, one that imposes its own understanding of “Russian culture,” it follows that this understanding must be abandoned – including for the sake of preserving the very possibility of free creativity. As for the contradictory nature of any particular figure of Russian culture – let each person decide for themselves how to relate to it.

"Identity". War Dictionary by Nikolai Karpitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 17.11.2025

URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/dictionary-of-war/what-is-identity/

One of the mistakes made by the Russian authorities, who expected to gain the support of the local population after invading Ukraine, stems from their failure to understand Ukrainian identity and the fact that identity cannot be imposed as an ideological construct. What identity is and how Ukrainian identity differs from Russian identity is explained by Nikolai Karpitsky in the latest article from the “Dictionary of War” series on PostPravda.Info.

Identity

Identity is a sense of unity or sameness with something – an element of self-awareness as a person, based on one’s understanding of oneself and one’s relation to others. Different levels of identity coexist within self-consciousness:

– Personal identity – an answer to the question “Who am I?”; an awareness of oneself and one’s place in the world, formed through life experience and inner self-determination as an individual.

– Social identity – an awareness of belonging or connection to a community, culture, or tradition; it can be cultural, religious, professional, ideological, ethnic, national, civic, etc.

With the rise of nationalism in the 20th century, ideological appeals to ethnic and national identity were used to justify political claims that led to World War II and many other armed conflicts, including the Russo-Ukrainian war that began in 2014.

Civic and Archaic Social Identity

An archaic form of social identity is identifying oneself with a community of relatives, friends, or fellow villagers – that is, with the circle of people one can personally interact with. Based on this, different types of local identities are formed, connected to real communities – one’s village, one’s local community. These communities are “real” in the sense that people within them can directly interact with each other, unlike “imagined communities” (in the terminology of Benedict Anderson), in which people only mentally perceive themselves as part of one group but never actually meet each other. Such communities exist only in people’s consciousness, and to recognize identity with them, people need some marker of commonality – a shared religion, language, culture, nation, citizenship, social class, territory, customs, ethics, and so on.

In earlier times, belonging to a social class or religion was more important than ethnic affiliation, so nations and territories played a minor role in social identity. The formation of civic identity began when a sense of responsibility for one’s city or country became more important than loyalty to one’s class, lord, or king. The feeling of responsibility for one’s country as a whole led to the emergence of new civic nations. However, the process of their formation differs from country to country – in some, they are already established, while in others, they are only beginning to emerge.

The Soviet People – An Ideological Construct

Among the largely uneducated population of Tsarist Russia, local identity predominated. For most people, it was only important that those around them spoke a familiar language, followed familiar customs, and practiced the same religion. Identification with Russia as a whole was understood in an imperial context – as identification with the territory controlled by the Tsar’s authority.

For the Communists, the foundation of the state was territory and power, and it was no longer important which nations inhabited those territories. This defined the project of creating a new community – the Soviet people – united only by territory and state power. The collapse of the Soviet Union showed that identification with the Soviet people was based on ideology rather than genuine identity, and that the Soviet people were merely an ideological construct.

The Difference Between Identity and Ideology

Social self-identification can take either an ideological or a personal form – and only in the latter case does it become the foundation of true identity. Unlike ideology, identity always has a personal character. Ideology creates a system of ideas that motivate people to act in the interests of power or a group seeking power. An ideological framework requires a person to accept these ideas as their own, regardless of personal life experience or self-determination. A person who refuses to accept or critically reinterprets these ideas is perceived as a hostile element toward that ideology.

In contrast, identity is formed on the basis of one’s own life experience, with ideas serving as a means of understanding that experience. Therefore, there is no requirement to accept a fixed set of ideas as mandatory. On the contrary, one can constantly reinterpret them to gain a deeper understanding of oneself. For this reason, national or religious identity fosters personal development and creative self-realization, while national or religious ideology, on the contrary, suppresses individuality.

Since ideological self-identification is externally imposed and coercive, people usually abandon it easily when the political situation changes, and such rejection has no fundamental impact on their personality. A historical example of this is the abandonment of identification with the Soviet people. However, one cannot abandon one's own identity without a complete transformation of the self.

The Ideological Understanding of National Identity

The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the beginning of the formation of new civic nations in Russia and Ukraine. However, the establishment of a dictatorship in Russia interrupted this process. The current regime in Russia imposes on its citizens a contradictory identification with their country, which combines two distinct ideological orientations.

First, it presents Russia not as a state with historically defined borders, but as any territory that is or has ever been governed by central Russian authority. Second, it promotes an aggressive nationalist myth of a “triune people” sharing a single root – implying that Ukrainians and Belarusians have no right to exist independently of Russia. The first ideological stance is internationalist, while the second is nationalist and chauvinistic. This duality allows Russian propaganda to attract people with opposing ideological beliefs.

In line with the nationalist orientation, the Russian leadership seeks to impose a Russian identity on Ukrainians – declared as one of the goals of the military invasion of Ukraine, under the slogan of “denazification.” Some residents of the occupied territories of Ukraine declare support for Russia from the opposite ideological position: they identify not with Russians as a people, but with the territory controlled by Moscow. However, this ideological identification has failed to create a genuine Russian identity among them – neither during the Soviet period nor now.

The Russian propaganda system projects its own ideological understanding of national identity onto Ukrainian public consciousness. According to this view, Ukrainian identity is an ideological construct imposed by the West to set Ukraine against Russia. In reality, Ukraine is united by a shared cultural and historical experience – including a negative colonial past – which precludes any acceptance of a Russian identity.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, the process of identity formation based on a new Ukrainian civic nation accelerated. However, it remains uneven, and in many regions – particularly in eastern Ukraine – an archaic local identity persists alongside Ukrainian identity, rooted in attachment to one’s city or village rather than to the country as a whole. This circumstance has also been used to sustain the false myth that residents of eastern Ukraine predominantly possess a Russian identity.

Nikolai Karpitsky. No peace agreement is possible, nor is life under occupation

Excerpt from the publication: 

Arden Arkman. “This isn’t the Middle Ages, and we aren’t serfs”: Locals in Ukrainian-controlled parts of the Donbas react to Putin’s territorial demands. The Insider. 12.11.2025. https://theins.press/en/confession/286742

(The content of the conversation with Nikolai Karpitsky was recorded for the article by Arden Arkman)

I’m from Tomsk, Siberia, where I graduated from the university’s philosophy department, taught there, and defended the rights of believers persecuted by the state. I often traveled to Ukraine, studying local religious communities. In 2014, I condemned Russia’s military actions — I said so openly in Tomsk media.

Because of that stance and my trips to Ukraine, the university refused to renew my contract, and there was no reason to stay in Russia. So in 2015, I moved to Kharkiv, where the local Krishna community helped me find a teaching job at Luhansk National University, which had relocated because of the war.

I traveled along the front line in Donbas, writing about how Christians lived amid the fighting. In Avdiivka, I helped deliver food to pensioners by bicycle with other volunteers. Among both us and the locals were people with pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian views, but there was no conflict.

Only once did my Russian citizenship cause problems. In 2015, I was stopped at a checkpoint outside Avdiivka — at the time the military had orders to detain anyone with a Russian passport. An anti-terrorist unit took me away for questioning about my views, which, as a teacher, I even found interesting. They eventually said, ‘Don’t tease the soldiers anymore,’ and let me go. After that, I passed that checkpoint freely.

Sloviansk emptied out in 2014, as everyone who could do so fled the war-torn Ukrainian cities. People feared both shelling and reprisals. The husband of a friend of mine, a deacon, was taken by pro-Russian fighters under the command of Igor Girkin. He was tortured and executed. Residents began returning in 2015, but out of 110,000 people, about half remain today.

I moved to Sloviansk in 2020, bought a small house with help from a local Christian community, and received permanent residency in Ukraine. Until the full-scale invasion, life was quiet, maybe [there was] one explosion a week somewhere. Until drones appeared, even eight kilometers from the front line it felt peaceful, like the rear. Since 2022, the front has drawn much closer — both in reality and in feeling.

Now, when the explosions hit, no one goes to the shelters — it’s pointless. Air raid alerts happen five times a day, but the strikes rarely coincide [with it] because it’s impossible to track them all. Yesterday drones were flying over; today I read that one local was killed. Living through this is terrifying, but you get used to it with time.

A few months ago, there was an explosion 500 or 800 meters from me, the house was completely destroyed. I was walking to the market, and people around me barely reacted. They kept walking the streets, working, and buying food. There’s a big difference between systematic and sporadic shelling.

Now Kostiantynivka is being struck systematically: there’s no power, water or gas, drones and missiles are destroying homes one by one. When utilities and repair crews can’t even work — that’s systematic destruction. In Sloviansk, they fix things quickly after strikes, and people have accepted that any of them could be next. It’s a kind of Russian roulette. I’ve decided to stay until the very last moment, but if things get really bad, I’ll go to Kramatorsk.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, prices have risen two to four times depending on the product. The variety of goods has decreased, but there will never be hunger here because Ukraine is a breadbasket. Even if a major war breaks out across the entire country, people will live on porridge, but they will live.

My citizenship or nationality has never mattered here, even after the start of the full-scale war. No one looks at your passport; they look at your beliefs. Everyone knows that Ukrainians curse Russians, but among themselves, they argue even more fiercely.

Because of the war, a sharp political culture has taken shape: any question is seen as a matter of life and death. Even in religious communities — among Hare Krishnas and Christians — there are debates over whether to take a pacifist or radically patriotic stance, whether to support the front or withdraw and focus on spiritual matters, whether to speak out actively or maintain neutrality. But everyone is united in a pro-Ukrainian position. No one holds a pro-Russian one. Even the traditional pacifism of the Hare Krishnas here is pro-Ukrainian: everyone wants Ukraine to win and criticizes Russian Krishnas for their different, pro-Russian “pacifism.”

It is natural that most of the blame is placed on Russians — they are the ones bombing us. But sometimes frustration is also projected onto the local authorities: why they didn’t prepare better, why there aren’t enough shelters, whether there is corruption, and so on. Russia is seen as the aggressor, and everyone understands that the Russians want to kill them. Therefore, no peace agreements are possible, nor is life under occupation.

Even communication with antiwar Russians isn’t working out for Ukrainians right now. I myself take part in some discussions, but only as an equal participant — like any other Ukrainian — and in both Ukrainian and Russian without any problem. And I can hear that no one here believes in dialogue or cooperation with Russians.

In 2022, Ukrainians naively thought it was possible to explain to Russians what was happening here, that they would understand and show support. But it soon became clear that no one could be convinced. And that was it, “dead means dead.” Even I have lost communication with like-minded people in Russia.

Some Russians say, “I support Ukraine. Ukrainians are our allies. We’ll stand together and try to convince other Russians not to go to the front. Let’s find common ground...” And Ukrainians reply: “That’s your problem. We live under bombs here, defending our country, and you want us to take part in your activities? The internal fight against Putin is your responsibility. We are fighting for survival.”

It also depends on the person. If someone speaks on behalf of Russians and takes responsibility for everything Russia is doing — or speaks only for themselves — they’ll be listened to. But when someone speaks on behalf of hypothetical “Russians who are against Putin,” that’s an immediate goodbye.

The idea of transferring our lands through any kind of agreement is completely unrealistic, even unimaginable. I myself will not live under occupation, and no one else will want to either. This isn’t the Middle Ages, when people could be handed over from one state to another like serfs.

First of all, there is a misconception in both Ukraine and Russia that the east is entirely pro-Russian and the west entirely pro-Ukrainian. That’s not true. It’s true that many in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions used to vote for pro-Russian parties. But there is no genuine Russian identity here, only Ukrainian or post-Soviet.

People here considered themselves locals because the idea of Ukraine had not yet fully formed — but it is taking shape now. Those who voted for the Party of Regions did not want to join Russia or see themselves as Russians; they wanted compromise, peace, and open borders, like in their Soviet past.

And in Donbas, more than half of the population felt that way. Pro-Russian politicians exploited these dreams and misrepresented them as genuine pro-Russian sentiment. It’s important to understand that Ukraine has no centralized propaganda like Russia does, so there’s complete anarchy in terms of information, and politics are hard to navigate. Every blogger, every party, every leader is their own propagandist. People were used to voting for local politicians without thinking about their “pro-Russian” stance.

In general, Russian propaganda is full of nostalgia for the Soviet Union. It even affects some young people who never lived in Soviet times but idealize it because they’ve been shown a picture of it as a paradise. Still, even they don’t want to be part of modern Russia.

Some people are politically illiterate. In Avdiivka, volunteers once brought food to an elderly woman whose apartment had been hit directly by a Grad rocket. The flat was burned out, but [Orthodox] icons still stood there — and among them, a portrait of [Viktor] Yanukovych. The woman said that under him, things were calm and life was good. Another man was hiding from mobilization, convinced that when the Russians arrived, they would give him an apartment in Donetsk and a job. In another building, an elderly man said he “didn’t know who was shooting at us.”

These people are not organized and cannot act as a political force demanding independence. But more and more people in Sloviansk now see themselves as Ukrainians, especially the young — and they know Ukrainian perfectly, unlike the older generation. Even the elderly now realize they live in Ukraine and that this is not just their local territory, but part of the Ukrainian state.

In 2015, half of the residents said, “We don’t care who’s in power, we’ll live under anyone.” But now no one here would agree to give up any territory under any circumstances. If you asked, “Would you agree to join Russia if these regions were transferred to it?” — the overwhelming majority would say, “Absolutely not,” even in exchange for peace.

When the referendum was held in Donbas, many people did come out to vote. It was a psychological reaction. People felt utterly helpless: they saw what was happening, couldn’t control it, and feared for the future. The referendum created the illusion that by voting, they could somehow influence events. It was a coping mechanism.

I believe that in the future, both sides’ use of artificial intelligence will affect the course of hostilities. The front will freeze, and we will lose the concept of the rear: the entire territory of both Russia and Ukraine will become a war zone. Because of drones, there will be no safe places anywhere, unfortunately. But without the drone revolution, the situation here would be much worse. The war had turned into one of attrition and was leading to Ukraine’s defeat. Now the odds have evened out. Technology is developing symmetrically: what we see in Sloviansk and in Kyiv will soon be happening across all of Russia. No one, in either Ukraine or Russia, will feel safe.

"Myth". War Dictionary by Nikolai Karpitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 06.11.2025

URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/dictionary-of-war/aggressive-political-myth-of-the-kremlin/

The aggressive political myth used to justify war – not only against Ukraine but against the entire Western civilization – penetrates much deeper into the public consciousness than Kremlin propaganda, disinformation, or fake news. In the latest article for The Dictionary of War on PostPravda.Info, Nikolai Karpitsky explains why such a myth must be distinguished from ordinary historical myths inherent to any cultural consciousness.

Myth

A myth is an irrational way of understanding reality that, unlike rational knowledge, does not raise questions or invite critical reflection – instead, it eliminates them. A myth unites different events and phenomena into a coherent worldview, giving them new meaning even when no real connection exists between them. Myth complements rational understanding and allows people to perceive life as a whole. However, it can transform into an aggressive form when it comes into conflict with reality and forces people to deny obvious facts.

Example. If the lives of two people in love acquire new meaning through the myth of eternal love or destiny, that myth reveals the true essence of happiness – while critical thinking would only disrupt it. The happiness of the lovers becomes the criterion of the myth’s truth.

But if a person, blinded by love, begins to pursue another violently, their mythological perception of love collides with reality.

The most common form of aggressive social myth is the “conspiracy theory”: a conspiracy of doctors who allegedly invented the coronavirus, or of a secret world government that supposedly started the war between Russia and Ukraine, and so on. Such myths can be used by various political forces to justify power grabs, dictatorship, repression, and military aggression.

Because public consciousness often follows mythological logic, pseudoscientific and pseudo-historical myths circulate within it – this is natural and not necessarily negative. For example, the belief that one’s native language and culture are the oldest in the world. However, when subjected to ideological manipulation, such myths can take on an aggressive political form.

The Difference Between an Aggressive Political Myth and Fake News or Disinformation

A fake is a forgery meant to deceive – for example, a falsified news story, image, or source of information.

When fakes are spread deliberately, they become disinformation. Generally, disinformation can be exposed through data and source analysis or, at the very least, shown to be unsubstantiated. A political myth, by contrast, not only feeds on propaganda fakes – it can also generate them on its own, even without the direct participation of propaganda.

Unlike fake news or disinformation, an aggressive political myth does more than simply mislead people about facts or events – it constructs an alternative worldview that makes mutual understanding with those who perceive reality adequately impossible. A worldview determines the meaning and likelihood of events: phenomena that seem improbable or impossible from a realistic perspective become natural and inevitable within the alternative worldview – and vice versa.

An aggressive political myth cannot be treated as just another mistaken hypothesis, because even erroneous hypotheses can be tested rationally for their correspondence to reality. In contrast, such a myth is tested only against its own internal worldview through arbitrary interpretations and generalizations.

Therefore, no rational argument or reference to facts can persuade a person who believes in such a myth.

Example. In the autumn of 1999, an imperial myth prevailed in Russia – the belief that foreign forces sought to destroy the country, and that a new leader must restore it. When a series of apartment bombings occurred in Russia, serving as the pretext for the Second Chechen War, Moscow’s FSB was caught red-handed while preparing another bombing in Ryazan. Despite this, Russians voted for Putin in the next election. The myth proved stronger than the facts.

Aggressive Political Myths of the Kremlin

Historical consciousness in Russia has been shaped by unscientific historical myths – such as the myth of the “triune people” of Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, allegedly descended from a single root. In reality, the territory of Kyivan Rus’ was inhabited by many different Slavic and non-Slavic tribes, and it is inaccurate to draw a direct line from them to modern nations. It doesn’t have any relevance to contemporary Russia and Ukraine, does it? Nevertheless, the Russian government has turned this myth into an ideology that justifies war and the destruction of Ukrainian identity.

The worldview of supporters of the current Russian regime includes several aggressive political myths that have fostered the spread of the ideology and practice of Russian fascism – “rashism.” Russians who accept this worldview are convinced that the West and Ukraine are hostile toward them, and that Russia is forced to wage war against them. Such people are almost impossible to persuade with facts or rational arguments.

Among these myths are the following:

– Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are one people; therefore, Ukraine has no right to independence.

– Ukrainian identity does not exist, and Ukraine is an Austro-Hungarian project created to destroy Russia.

– In 2014, the United States organized a coup in Ukraine and, against the will of the people, brought to power the “Kyiv junta,” which supposedly established a Nazi dictatorship and carries out repressions against Russians.

– The residents of eastern Ukraine have a Russian identity; therefore, they have always wanted to become part of Russia.

– The “Kyiv junta” bombed the Donbas for eight years, while Ukrainians dreamed that Russia would liberate them from the “Nazi regime.”

All these myths have nothing to do with reality. However, based on them, the Kremlin made the decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, expecting it to be supported by the local population.

War is a Reality That Cannot Be Ignored

Historical myths are an integral part of a nation’s cultural consciousness, and cultural creativity based on myth affirms its inner truth. Myth and science are alternative ways of understanding reality, so it is meaningless to disprove myth from the standpoint of science or science from the standpoint of myth. A myth can be called false only when it comes into conflict with reality. An additional sign of the falsity of such myths is their ability to generate new fakes – for example, fabricated stories about “Nazi atrocities” that arise in the public mind independently of official propaganda.

In peacetime, people often replace reality with myths, allowing themselves to overlook contradictions. But war is a reality that cannot be ignored. Putin believed that Ukrainians would support the Russian invasion – but his myth collided with reality. Many Russians believe in the myth of “Nazis persecuting Russians in Ukraine,” and because of this they lose connection with their own relatives and friends, perceiving them not as living people but as images from propaganda. Thus, they enter into conflict with the reality of their loved ones. This gives reason to claim that not all, but specifically Russian political myths are false.

"Ideology". War Dictionary by Nikolai Karpitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 31.10.2025

URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/dictionary-of-war/the-ideology-of-russia-differ-from-the-soviet-one/

Whereas Soviet ideology was monolithic, the current ideology of the Russian authorities appears diffuse, combining seemingly incompatible elements — for example, the glorification of the Soviet past alongside the idealisation of tsarist Russia. At the same time, Russian propaganda has achieved notable success, managing to draw in a wide range of political forces — including some that are openly hostile to one another. This indicates that contemporary Russian ideology operates differently from its Soviet predecessor. To understand this difference, we need to turn to the very concept of “ideology” itself, a topic to which Nikolai Karpitsky devoted another entry in the “Dictionary of War” on PostPravda.Info.

Ideology

Ideology is a system of ideas that motivates people to act in the interests of those in power, or of a group aspiring to power. This applies not only to state power, but also to power within various segments of society – religious movements, patriarchal communities, professional associations, mafia organizations, and so on.

Values and Ιdeology

Values are the deeper meanings that confer significance on life — on actions, goals, events, and phenomena. They form an inner motivation, independent of external circumstances, that prompts a person to think and act freely. Through value-based self-determination, a person becomes aware of their freedom and expresses it through cultural creativity.

Ideology is grounded in ideological frameworks - shared meanings that establish how socio-political phenomena should be evaluated, and what is expected of a person’s stance and participation within society. Ideology assumes that its principles must be accepted unconditionally, without critical reflection. Therefore, when confronted with ideological propaganda, a person is faced with a choice: either accept it, or be counted among its enemies.

If an ideological directive is an external factor that does not require free self-determination, then values, by contrast, emerge from within that very process of self-determination. Thus, a person can critically re-evaluate their values, arriving at a deeper understanding of them. Ideology can appeal to values only by transforming them. To achieve this, a particular interpretation of values is presented to society as a norm that demands unconditional agreement. An example of such ideological transformation is the modern Russian discourse on “traditional values”, which functions not as a system of values at all, but as a set of ideological directives.

Ideology and Public Morality

Public morality relies on moral norms and may be grounded either in ethics or in ideology. Ethics is grounded in ethical values, which require a person to exercise free self-determination in relation to them. Therefore, an ethical stance is a personal stance, one in which an individual is conscious of their own responsibility. A moral norm expresses the shared understanding of ethical values. Public morality may differ between communities, depending on how their moral norms articulate and preserve a shared understanding of ethical values.

If moral norms are imposed not as an expression of shared ethical values but as formal requirements, they must then be justified ideologically. This becomes particularly evident when moral requirements that operate within a specific community are imposed on society as a whole, presented as unconditional norms that allow no room for discussion. In such cases, public morality loses its connection to ethical values and turns into a tool of ideology.

Religion and Ιdeology

If religion is embraced without freedom, it loses its genuine meaning. The preaching of doctrine and moral principles is directed toward free individuals; its purpose is to persuade, not to impose. However, when the followers of a particular religion present their moral position as a mandatory norm for the entire society, including those who do not share their faith, they thereby turn religion into ideology.

The internal dimension of religion is the shared religious experience of individuals, while its external dimension is its institutionalization in the social sphere, where it reinforces traditional social relations and public morality. The institutional form of religion may rest either on religious experience or on religious ideology. Religion becomes ideology when it turns into a system of demands that people are expected to accept regardless of their own lived experience.

Worldview and World Picture

A worldview is an outlook on the world grounded in a system of ideas that reflect a person's own beliefs. Ideology is also a system of ideas that shapes a certain view of the world, but its purpose is to persuade others. A person may adopt an ideology as a tool for promoting their worldview in society, but they may also treat it pragmatically or even cynically, distinguishing between the ideology and their own convictions. A world picture is what a person perceives as reality, regardless of how they evaluate it.

A worldview is grounded in ideas that enable a person to determine what is right or wrong in the world, and how they should act. A world picture is grounded in principles and laws according to which the world can exist only in one way and not otherwise. On this basis, a person distinguishes what is possible in the world and what is, in principle, impossible. A person can change their worldview simply by reinterpreting certain ideas; however, such a shift is not enough to alter their world picture. For the world picture to change as well, one must reconstruct their understanding of the world on an entirely different set of principles.

The world picture explains how the world is structured; the worldview explains how the existing order of things is evaluated; and ideology is a tool for mobilizing and manipulating society.

The World Picture of the current Russian ruling regime:

Human history is driven by dark forces, and Russia is their opponent. The development of civilization merely demonstrates the triumph of these dark forces, which dominate advanced Western societies. However, their influence is weaker in less developed authoritarian regimes, which may therefore become potential allies of Russia.

The Worldview of the Russian ruling regime:

Russia’s supreme mission is the “reunification of its lands,” and anyone who resists this is an enemy. The lives of people and nations beyond Russia have no intrinsic value, and therefore they are expected to be grateful for the “opportunity” to be absorbed into Russia. Any territory that was once governed by Russia is regarded as inherently Russian. Ukraine’s aspiration for independence is a betrayal that must be punished; therefore, the war against Ukraine is justified.

The ideology of the contemporary Russian ruling regime

In the Soviet Union, only one ideology was permitted. It not only completely shaped the system of propaganda, education, and social control, but also imposed constraints on the country’s highest leadership. In particular, the party’s ideological directives enabled it to maintain control over the KGB.

Russian authorities view ideology as a tool of control and manipulation, one that should not place any limits on themselves. If necessary, it can easily shift its ideological stance and, depending on the situation, draw on various, even mutually contradictory, ideologies and ideological frameworks, such as rashism, the concept of the “Russian World”, the idea of Russia’s special historical path, Eurasianism, the cult of Stalin, the idealization of imperial Russia, and so-called “traditional values,” among others.

The Soviet system was founded on an ideology that resembled a monolith: on the one hand, it was very strong, yet on the other, it was fragile, since even a single challenge to any part of Soviet ideology could undermine the stability of the entire structure. Supporting the Soviet Union necessarily meant offering unconditional support for its ideology. The Russian authorities are not bound to any single ideology, which allows them to gain support from opposing political forces, since no specific ideological commitment is required from them. For them, what matters is not a shared ideology, but a shared worldview.

For example, during the Soviet period, church leaders understood that although they were completely dependent on the state, their religion was incompatible with Soviet ideology. This prevented religious organizations from openly supporting the Soviet Union’s aggressive wars. The only political campaign in which they participated was the so-called struggle for peace, which the Soviet authorities proclaimed at the level of official rhetoric.

Now, many Russian religious leaders are themselves advancing ideological narratives that justify Russia’s aggressive policies and its war against Ukraine. Moreover, they are beginning to weave their own religion into the worldview promoted by the Russian authorities, in which modern civilization is portrayed as something inherently evil. Such a practice did not exist during the Soviet period.