Contested Ukraine: Military Patrotism, Russian Influence and Implications for European Security

Since 2014, Ukraine's sovereignty has been fundamentally challenged, and not only by military means. Side by side with the use of military force, there is a dramatic and multifaceted struggle to influence the population's political attitudes and sense of belonging. Both before and after the full-scale invasion of 2022, Russia has actively promoted specific ideas about nationality and belonging in order to undermine Ukraine and consolidate its control over occupied populations. After 2022, this battle is beign fought in in new ways. The vulnerability of Ukrainians living in Kyiv-controlled areas has been reduced, but yet more territory has been placed under Russian occupation and declared annexed. Russia is not only acting as an occupying power in the normal sense, but has launched a large-scale 'russification' campaign with the intention of winning the population's loyalty in the long term. We argue that this struggle for identity leads to new security and political consequences for Europe. Our aims in this project is to: 1) study so-called military-patriotic activities in occupied areas from 2014 to the present, and analyze their role in the conflict and their relationship to Russia; 2) determine which instruments Russia has used to influence Ukrainian society before and after 2022, and how Ukraine has responded to this challenge; and 3) assess the consequences of these developments for European security. What lessons can we draw from how the information war is being waged on both sides? The participants in the project will study the political footprint of Russian actors in Ukrainian society, both inside and outside of occupied regions. In this way, we seek to better understand strategies aimed specifically at Ukrainian society. On a more general level, we want to understand Russia's behavior towards the societies of its rivals, and what consequences this entails. We will explore Russia's footprint at local, regional, national, and international levels, and look for patterns. Through this research, we seek to expand our understanding of the means as well as intentions, of Russia's society-centric warfare, Much of the project's data will be collected through digital fieldwork and in close cooperation between the project's Ukrainian and other partners. The first published results for the research project concerns primarily the situation in the Donbas prior to 2022, clearly showing how Russia and its proxies initiated a substantial effort to militarize local communites in the occupied territories, including children and youth. From 2019, this took place alongside a large scale russification of the Donbas - forewarning the annexation declarations of 2022. In 2025, the project will also publish research that suggests how similar processes is now taking place in more recently occupied territories. The last two research groups are by 2024 consolidating and formulating their reserach findings. This research concerns other sources and platforms of Russian influence both before and after 2022, and not least Ukrainaian countermeasures against Russian influence operations. In the latter case, our research group trusly possess unique insights due to our closeness to the events themselves.

`Contested Ukraine’ argues that the implications of the Ukrainian crisis on European security can only be understood against the backdrop of identity formation, regional diversity and cross-national influences. The project approaches Ukraine as a central site of political and ideational contestation with repercussions for European security, particularly Russia-Western relations. We argue that threats in the societal realm have become increasingly important in this contestation. This project uses the concept of “society-centric warfare” as an overarching perspective to emphasize the role of societies as subjects of contestation. ‘Contested Ukraine’ spans from innovative case-studies of "military patriotism" in the occupied parts of Ukraine via structured research on the footprint of Russian identity-influencing activity in the government-controlled Ukraine to a lessons-learned approach with focus on European security. Analyses of the Ukrainian crisis, domestic and identity structures in Ukraine, and implications for European security have too often been hampered by superficial assumptions about the nature of the Donbas conflict. Ukrainian affairs post 2013-14 beg for more nuanced research by international research teams employing both Russian- and Ukrainian language sources. Our research team is tailored to interlink micro and macro-perspectives and overcome scholarly polarization. The project has three main focus areas; 1) map and operationalize the impact of "military patriotic activity" in the occupied parts of Ukraine and analyze its relevance to illegal border formation and “society-centric warfare”, 2) determine which society-centric strategies Russia employs to reshape Ukrainian society and how Ukraine responds to that effort; and 3) consider implications for European security of domestic fault lines in Ukraine and Russian efforts at leveraging these.