Putin’s Invasion has Strengthened Ukrainian Identity including among Russian Speakers in Eastern Portions of Ukraine, Skorkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 29 – Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had the unintended and for him unwelcome consequence of strengthening Ukrainian national identity in the eastern portions of Ukraine and promoted the rise of “Russian-speaking Ukrainian nationalism,” according to Konstantin Skorkin.

            The journalist who reports on the Donbass says that what Putin has done has “radicalized” the population there, with Ukrainians there who opposed nationalist messages changing their position and many who earlier identified as Russians now identifying as Ukrainians at least in a civic sense (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/09/29/novii-natsionalizm-kak-rossiya-ukrepila-ukrainskuyu-natsionalnuyu-identichnost-a207289).

            Both groups increasingly accept the Ukrainian nationalism that many in that country and abroad saw as restricted to the western portions of Ukraine that Stalin absorbed into the USSR at the end of World War II. That means that Ukraine has been integrated way and that Moscow and its backers will get a surprise if they force Kyiv to yield the east to Moscow.

            Such regions would not quickly integrate into Russia but rather become a source of resistance within that country, possibly even stronger than the one Ukrainians in the west displayed when Stalin moved the borders west. Neither Putin nor many others understand that if Putin gets want he wants in terms of borders, he will almost inevitably lose more than he gains.

            And such Ukrainian resistance then within the nominal borders of the Russian Federation would likely do more to spark both radical Russian nationalism and equally radical non-Russian nationalism in ways that would tear the Russian Federation apart, exactly the opposite of what the Kremlin says it wants.

            A few years ago, some joked that Ukrainians should put up two statues of Russian leaders in their capital who had done so much for Ukraine, one to Stalin who expanded Ukraine’s borders, and another to Putin, who is seeking to reduce them,  because each has done so much to promote a powerful upsurge of Ukrainian nationalism.

            That is no longer funny for Moscow, especially as the inclusion of  eastern Ukraine within the Russian Federation would have such likely fatal consequences for the survival of the Muscovite state. Indeed, it could even happen that Putin will have helped Ukraine even more than Stalin did by contributing to the destruction of Ukraine’s greatest enemy.