Russia-Ukraine: Only one will remain

The Russo-Ukrainian War, which on February 24th 2022 transitioned from a hybrid phase to full-scale conventional war, is not only attracting the attention of the whole world. It also gives us reason to think about what the configuration of relations between the two states will be after the end of the war – a war in which only one of the states may have a chance to survive intact.

The ideological underpinnings of the Russo-Ukrainian War are contradictory. On the one hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin published his article “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” last summer, which was filled with amateur arguments about the Ukrainians’ lack of right to their own statehood. On the other hand, on February 24th 2022, Putin, among other things, declared the need for the "denazification of Ukraine", though he failed to find an adequate explanation for this thesis. Official Russian ideology allows for combining the rhetoric of a “fraternal people” with the “Nazi regime that prevails in Ukraine”.