Ukrainian media started smearing the signatories of our letter in defense of @HavryshkoMarta, including some of the world-known scholars of Ukrainian history, nationalism, and Holocaust. /1 This article labels @HimkaJohn one of the most prominent Ukrainian-Canadian historians, a "Ukrainophobe" and slanders Grzegorz Rossolinski-Liebe, the author of the best and only biography of Stepan Bandera, as a "supporter of radical right-wing views." /2
zahid.espreso.tv/suspilstvo-zak…

The argument that post-Soviet countries have been showing the West its future, rather than failing to catch up with the "civilized" and "developed" world, has a history. As the argument gains more appeal, it may be worth exploring its origins sometime. /1

https://x.com/rochowanski/status/1949902327814463734

I first encountered this argument from Alexander Bikbov, a Russian critical sociologist, in the context of his analysis of changes to Russian higher education. /2

Ukraine had a chance to claim the legacy of WWII and the defeat of fascism. The Ukrainian front was pivotal, its losses immense. In 2022–23, battlefield outcomes were uncertain, but Ukraine clearly enjoyed stronger global sympathy. By 2025, even the symbolic war is lost. Historical parallels in the Russia-Ukraine war were always superficial but easy to draw. Ukraine failed to craft a universally appealing narrative. By 2025, key Global South leaders visit Moscow, wear symbols banned in Ukraine, and honor Russian veterans fighting in Ukraine.

Zelenskyi's approval rating is not the same as the electoral rating. The latter is rather low. The former is much higher than Trump claims, but lower than many claims to counter Trump. Anyway, there are signs that Zelenskyi isn't confident in his support at home. /1 In Ukraine they usually poll about "trust" in politicians or institutions in general or approval of specific policies or decisions. The most recent poll, conducted in early February and published today, showed 57% of trust in Zelenskyi. /2
kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=…

Just before Poroshenko was sanctioned by Zelenskyi last week, a plurality of Ukrainians believed that Poroshenko was the leader of the political opposition (24%). /1 Also, his party in the parliament was rated most positively among others. 35% said that it benefits Ukraine, only 19% were positive about Zelenskyi's party work. /2
kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=…

A brilliant article by @rochowanski. The speed with which the discourse on Eastern European "civil societies" is now changing is amazing. From the madness of "listening to the voices" to questioning their representativeness, interests and dependency. /1
jacobin.com/2025/02/wester… In Ukraine, USAID spent over 6 bln just in 2024. The sheer list of names of their recepient organizations is over 50,000 characters long. As a Ukrainian leftist writer commented: "I'm honestly shocked by the list. It's just EVERYTHING there." /2
epravda.com.ua/rus/finances/k…

This is one of the many orthodox Marxist-Leninist groups that boomed in many post-Soviet countries in the last decade as part of the neo-Soviet revival. In Ukraine since 2022, they have mostly taken a revolutionary defeatist position and gone underground. /1

https://twitter.com/HavryshkoMarta/status/1885835769614602411

Now they are focusing on resistance to conscription and appealing to draft dodgers and deserters - the issue that has strong support among Ukrainians against the backdrop of growing distrust of the state. /2
aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/…

This is a professor from San Diego. He calls me a "charlatan" for writing about Ukraine "from Berlin". A political scientist is unaware that one can work with fieldworkers in Ukraine, commission surveys, analyze statistics, collect open-access data, conduct online interviews /1 I lived, taught, and conducted research almost all my life in Ukraine until just about 5 years ago. I have published a lot, in particular, on ethnonationalism and on post-Soviet hegemony crisis. /2

https://x.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1778643536579031397

Like five years ago - when there was a window of opportunity to implement the Minsk agreements and we were closer to peace than at any time since 2014 - the literally Orwellian "peace is war" arguments are back on the surface. Some of the same people who had been shitting all over the public space about such an irrelevant far right were reminding us of the danger that armed radical nationalists posed to the peace process.

There are several typical arguments to deny ethnonationalist assimilationist policies in Ukraine:
1. Sheer denial
2. Justification
3. Downplaying.
They all share a major blindspot.
A thread inspired by this new bill and Marta's comments.

https://x.com/HavryshkoMarta/status/1841212676892213585

1. Sheer denial
Last year I told an academic superstar that there are almost no schools left in Ukraine that teach Russian even as an elective, even in the overwhelmingly Russian-speaking cities like Odessa. She said to my face, "That can't be true!"

A very well researched article by @scharap and @DrRadchenko on the Istanbul talks based on previously unpublished drafts of the peace agreement. It argues against a number of myths and misconceptions about why the talks failed and also why the war started.
foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-… In particular, they argue against the explanation that the talks failed because it was allegedly impossible to reach an agreement in Russia after the discovery of the war crimes in Bucha.

I have been working on the essay for about half a year, and it grew out of reflection and accumulated irritation about how Ukraine and Ukrainians have been represented in many public events. However, there was actually a specific trigger.
newleftreview.org/issues/ii138/a… Another event with all Ukrainian speakers, all but one from Western Ukraine, half from exactly the same region in Galicia, all graduates of the same small university, all knew each other personally and had worked together for decades. Of course, it was called "Ukrainian voices".

10 ys ago, some Euromaidan protesters made this leaflet to appeal to the top-down organized Anti-Maidan:
"Maidan does NOT stand for NATO, the US or Europe. We are NOT for Bandera, Shukhevych, Tymoshenko, Klychko, Poroshenko or Yatseniuk.
We are just tired of living in shit." And then there is a list of many social inequality and corruption issues that have been unresolved so far.

Sharing my recent papers that develop a class perspective on the Russia-Ukraine war:
• Class or regional cleavage? The Russian invasion and Ukraine's 'East/West' divide (European Societies)
• The Minsk Accords and the Political Weakness of the “Other Ukraine” (Russian Politics)
The first article touches on the key questions behind Putin's decision to launch the full-scale invasion:
• Why he needed to invade at all, instead of relying on "soft power"
• Why he opted for a short and limited "special operation
tandfonline.com/eprint/RBMWCRT…

"The number of Russian millionaires also rose by about 56,000 to 408,000 in 2022, while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people worth over $50 million — jumped by nearly 4,500."
businessinsider.in/policy/economy… On why this should not be surprising at all
jacobin.com/2022/10/russia…

9 years ago the armed violence started on Euromaidan. The following avalanche of escalating events quickly overshadowed it. However, its significance and danger was understood very well by many commenters and participants on that day. Of course, it upscaled, expanded, other dimensions became more salient. But on the fundamental level, this is still the same conflict, which started from police batons and bricks, proceeded to hunting rifles and machine guns, and is now resolved with tanks, jets, and rockets.

The essay in @NewLeftReview attracted far more attention than I expected. Especially grateful to those Ukrainian, other EE scholars, and regional experts, who, even if strongly disagree with me politically, saw that I addressed some real issues. Response to some criticism below First thing first. Of course, this is not a call to stop including Ukrainians into the international discussions. I said exactly the opposite: "Certainly, Ukrainian scholars, artists and intellectuals should be included in international discussions—and not just about Ukraine"

9 years ago Euromaidan triggered the last cycle of the post-Soviet crisis process that culminated in the invasion of Ukraine. The dynamics and outcomes of this revolution, violence, the role of right and left were the main topic of my studies these years. Most important below It's amazing how many worrying signs were evident even before the violent radicalization of Euromaidan protests, although I did not anticipate HOW disastrously they may develop. Not so many people did, especially among the intellectuals.

lefteast.org/support-ukrain…

For decades, social scientists questioned the ideological argument that there are "good" civic inclusive pluralistic and "bad" ethnic exclusive monistic nationalisms. It's been ironic to see how this binary got a second breath in relation to Ukraine

https://twitter.com/DavidKlion/status/1592914478165020674

A classic rebuttal is, of course, Rogers Brubaker's “The Manichean Myth: Rethinking the Distinction Between ‘Civic’ and ‘Ethnic’ Nationalism" sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/br….”

My new for Al Jazeera on how Russian military Keynesianism changes the economy and society, turns a significant minority of Russians into direct beneficiaries of the invasion, and creates a basis for active and conscious support for a much longer war.
aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/… It's also a sharp contrast with Ukraine’s sticking to neoliberal dogmas of privatisation, lowering taxes and extreme labour deregulation, despite the objective imperatives of the war economy, what @adam_tooze just termed “warfare without the state”
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-16…

There's a discussion about my argument that the war is driven by the rational collective interests of the Russian ruling class, not necessarily by national security concerns but also not by some ideological bigotry. Some recent complementary materials 👇
crossbordertalks.eu/2022/07/29/rus… A good discussion in and around @samagreene thread that Putin fights for the regime's security not for Russian national security and is also driven by geoeconomic conflict. Although I am more with @scharap on the question of negotiations.

https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1552818628625588226