Russian nationalism is not a uniform ideology easily explained through the frameworks typically applied in Western political thought. It is not merely ethnic in the sense of bloodline ancestry, nor is it civic in the way liberal democracies understand nationalism to stem from shared institutions, laws, and citizenship. Instead, Russian nationalism is a fluid and evolving construct that draws from an imperial legacy, religious myth, civilizational exceptionalism, and existential fear. Its power lies in how it can accommodate contradiction, shifting its weight between ideas of empire, ethnic purity, Orthodox unity, and cultural destiny depending on context.
It is this ambiguity that gives Russian nationalism its ideological resilience, and this very quality makes it so poorly understood in the West. The Western world, accustomed to relatively distinct categories of civic and ethnic nationalism, must come to grips with this hybridized and weaponized version of identity politics that drives the Kremlin’s policies in Ukraine and beyond. Failure to do so risks continually underestimating the long-term intentions and capabilities of the Russian state, especially in a world that is slowly fragmenting into competing civilizational blocs.
In civic nationalism, the nation is a political project. It is forged through shared laws, values, and institutions. The individual becomes part of the national identity through participation and commitment to those civic ideals. Countries like the United States, Canada, and increasingly Ukraine offer examples of this form. Ethnic nationalism, by contrast, is predicated on the belief that identity is rooted in shared ancestry, language, culture, and often religion. It sees the nation not as a legal construct but as an inherited biological and cultural essence. Russian nationalism exists along a different axis, one that merges the civilizational self-image of a once-expansive empire with elements of both ethnic identity and authoritarian control over historical memory. In Russia’s case, the nation is not just defined by territory or ethnicity but by its divine historical mission and metaphysical opposition to the West.
This concept of Russian identity, nurtured since the czarist era and reanimated under Vladimir Putin, relies heavily on the idea that Russia is not merely a state but a civilization unto itself. It sees its people as stewards of a spiritual heritage stretching back through Byzantium to Orthodox Christianity, a destiny cemented in their shared language, culture, and resistance to foreign domination. The modern Russian state presents itself as the rightful successor not only to the Russian Empire but also to the Soviet Union, while rejecting the liberal democratic values of the post–Cold War international order. This rejection is not simply political. It is existential. It portrays the Western world not as a rival set of countries with different political systems but as a moral and civilizational threat to the very fabric of Russian identity.
Within this paradigm, Ukraine represents more than a lost province or a former client state. Ukraine is the original cradle of East Slavic civilization. It is where Kyivan Rus’ was born, the cultural and religious forefather of modern Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Allowing Ukraine to assert a separate, sovereign identity breaks a foundational myth that binds Russian history together. It is not just the geographical independence that troubles Moscow. It is the symbolic and cultural secession from the Russian story. A democratic, European-oriented Ukraine undermines the Kremlin’s narrative that the post-Soviet space belongs within Russia’s sphere of influence. It also contradicts the idea that Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are inseparable branches of a single civilization. In the eyes of the Russian elite, this is not just geopolitical erosion. It is spiritual betrayal.
This is why Russia does not frame the war in Ukraine as a war of conquest in the conventional sense but as a war of salvation. It is portrayed domestically as a sacred mission to rescue the Ukrainian people from the grip of a decadent West, to liberate them from false consciousness, and to restore historical truth. This rhetoric taps into deep cultural memories of past invasions, spiritual sacrifice, and Russian messianism. It casts the West as not only hostile but corrosive, seeking to undermine traditional family values, Orthodox Christianity, and the cultural cohesion of the Slavic world. This is not just propaganda. It is a belief. It is a narrative deeply embedded in the post-Soviet reconstruction of Russian national consciousness. And it is the key to understanding the scale and brutality of Russia’s campaign in Ukraine.
Civic and ethnic nationalisms both imply some threshold for inclusion or exclusion. You either meet the legal qualifications of citizenship, or you are born into a defined ethnocultural group. Russian nationalism, by contrast, is more ambiguous and less bound by rational structures. It allows for both the inclusion of non-Russian ethnicities into a broader imperial framework and their exclusion when politically expedient. This flexibility is why Russia can present itself as a multiethnic federation while simultaneously waging an ethnicized war of cultural erasure in Ukraine. It is how the Kremlin can denounce Ukrainian nationalism as “fascism” while relying on ultranationalist militias and ideologues at home. This double logic is not a weakness. It is a strength in authoritarian systems, where internal coherence is less critical than narrative utility. By allowing contradictions to coexist, Russian nationalism becomes a tool of both domestic control and foreign expansion.
The war crimes, the deliberate targeting of cultural sites, the erasure of Ukrainian language and memory, the deportation of children, the renaming of towns, these are not isolated acts of cruelty. They are the logical outcome of an ideological project that views Ukrainian identity as artificial and dangerous. They are cultural and demographic warfare aimed at reversing the tide of Ukrainian independence, not only physically but psychologically. For the West, understanding this ideology is not an academic exercise. It is a strategic imperative. If Ukraine is seen merely as a victim of regional aggression, the response will be limited to military and economic aid. But suppose the conflict is understood as a battle over the future of identity, memory, and meaning in the post-Soviet space. In that case, the response must include cultural, educational, and ideological dimensions as well.
Western leaders must begin to see Ukraine not only as a frontline state but as a civilizational project of its own. Ukraine’s civic nationalism is fragile but real. It is rooted in the idea that anyone, regardless of ethnicity, can be Ukrainian if they share in its democratic vision and sovereign future. This vision directly opposes the Russian model of identity, which is exclusionary, hierarchical, and defined by opposition to the West. Supporting Ukraine, then, is not just about defending territory. It is about protecting the possibility of a pluralist identity in a region long dominated by imperial logics. It is about affirming that history can be rewritten by those who refuse to be written out of it.
The West’s failure to grasp the true nature of Russian nationalism has led to decades of strategic missteps. Treating Russia as a conventional state actor with security concerns rather than as an ideologically driven power has allowed the Kremlin to frame its aggression as defensive, its revisionism as restorative. But Russia does not seek security in the way NATO or the EU defines it. It seeks recognition of its exceptionalism. It seeks validation of its civilizational role. It aims to be seen not as one state among many but as the moral center of an alternative order. Until this is understood, efforts to contain Russia will fall short because they will not address the root of its behavior. They will treat the symptoms, not the source.
Understanding Russian nationalism requires abandoning our conceptual comfort zones. It requires seeing beyond the binaries of civic versus ethnic, rational versus irrational, and legal versus emotional. It demands engagement with history, religion, culture, and psychology. It requires listening to what Russian leaders say, not dismissing their statements as mere propaganda. It calls for a new kind of analysis, one that is willing to take ideas seriously, even dangerous ones. Because in the end, it is not tanks or sanctions or treaties that shape the fate of nations. It is the stories they tell themselves, and the stories they are willing to fight for.
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