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To a large extent, Putin’s realpolitik approach to foreign affairs has implicated the nature of contemporary Russian nationalism in a way that is conducive to his political authority. According to post-revisionist historiographies, multipolarity against American hegemony was Putin’s most ambitious objective. Thus, Russia’s nationalist self-help behaviour in attempting to re-conquer its neighbouring ex-SSR’s in the early 21st century should be examined to understand this logic. According to Monika Eriksen, the perception of Russia as a post-Imperial empire lacking international credibility problematised Russia’s identity crisis on a more ‘emotional’ level, questioning Russia’s modern placement in the international order., This logic characterised Putin’s ideological approach to policy in the Donbas and Crimea, attempting to gather support through manufactured ‘referendums’ and prove historical rights for annexation. This intended to elevate Russia as the legitimate overlord of ethnic Russians loyal to Putin in contested territories. At the same time, realpolitik sought to infiltrate the sovereignty of Ukraine on a more institutional level and influence national agenda. For Serhii Plohky, the Ukrainian perspective during Euromaidan supported this analysis. Indeed, Yanukovych’s appeal to Russia implied a betrayal of Ukraine’s own sovereignty to a country attempting to integrate it back into its sphere. Yanukovych’s ruling that the outcome of the February election was ‘unconstitutional’ was disproportionate and instead fed into the conspiracy of Western involvement purported by the Kremlin. This approach therefore understood Russian chauvinism as something enabled by Putin’s deceptive style of leadership, capable of manipulating the candidacy of foreign politicians in Ukraine.

 

Resistance to Russian chauvinism also had a long historical footing in Ukrainian histography and has been opposed by Russian approaches in light of past subjugation of the nationalities under Soviet rule. For post-Revisionists, Russians view compatriots as either Russian speakers ethnically either as ‘Russian, Belarusian or Ukrainian.’ Whereas Ukrainians share common identity in ‘civic identity’ often influenced linguistically.  To an extent, the 2014 reappeal of the Language Law evidenced this as an increasingly overt expression against Russification both in the division of spoken and official languages, and the naming of cities and towns., This was meaningful for post-revisionists as it advanced the friction between the two cultures, whereby one is informed by its sense of self compatriot-ship over the other, while highlighting how the other reluctantly shared little reciprocation with Russian logic. On the other hand, critical approaches saw the law’s abrogation of shared languages negatively implicating Russian and non-Ukrainian speakers living within regional Ukraine prior to Euromaidan, characterising a form of Ukrainian nationalism of its own. Examining Russo-Ukrainian identity has furthermore influenced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, as a means to firstly: restore Russia’s illusory claims to Ukrainian sovereignty, and secondly: eliminate Ukrainian identity as something fermenting internal dissent in relation to Russian perceived compatriot-ship. Although Russia hinted at championing an ‘age-old union’ of inferred ethnic groups in its 2000 anthem, the Russo-Ukrainian War contextualised this claim hierarchically with the subordination of Ukraine’s’ identity beneath Russia’s. Whereas Gorbachev’s Soviet Union was different in that Marxist-Leninist dialectic loosely bound ethnic differences under the Party. Rather racially influenced nationalism in contemporary Russia can be observed as defining Putin’s objectives in Ukraine by assuming ownership over their identity.,, Ukrainian nationalism in this sense has been influenced as a defensive response to coercion by Russia. Whereas the Russian Federation weaponised historical and ethnic claims to maintain its war efforts, however, at the cost of its own national identity by rendering itself as the victim and Ukraine as the aggressor.