In , Maria Popova examines how the fall of the Soviet Union started an identity and regime divergence between Russia and Ukraine and set both countries on a "collision course."听 The war in Ukraine and Russia's military aggression in the region has been an ongoing topic of discussion for many political scientists over the last two years. For Maria Popova, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, this topic of discussion has branched out beyond the classroom, to her informative X account and to her extensive presence in local, national and international media as an expert on the history and context of the former Soviet Union and its context in Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.听
"It鈥檚 very important to contextualize [current events] because journalists have a shorter time horizon," said Popova, when we interviewed her back in June 2022. "They may have detailed understanding of current events, but they understand and report better if they get the wider context."
Popova's participation in providing a wider context to the war in Ukraine resulted in her being awarded the 2023 President's Prize for Public Engagement Through Media, in the Established Academics category.听
Her recent book, co-authored with friend and colleague Oxana Shevel from Tufts University, continues her commitment to providing crucial historical context to explain the roots of this ongoing war.
Read our interview with Professor Popova to find out why the history and political ideologies of these two neighbouring states is so crucial in understanding Russia's war on Ukraine.听
Q: How did you and Oxana Shevel come to author this book together?
MP: In the run-up to the February 2022 full-scale invasion, Oxana and I, who have been friends since graduate school at Harvard in the 2000s, started writing short pieces for outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Just Security, Slate, and the Journal of Democracy, aimed at correcting some preconceptions that came from insufficient expertise on Ukrainian politics and biased expertise in Russian politics in the media and public discourse. As scholars of both Russian and Ukrainian political development with over two decades of experience and complementary interests, we tried to communicate effectively two main points: 1) Russia isn鈥檛 worried about a security threat from NATO, but is determined to establish full political control over Ukraine; and 2) Ukraine would strongly and effectively resist Russia鈥檚 attempt to bring it back into the 鈥淩ussian World鈥�. In the spring, the publisher of Polity Books approached us and offered us to develop our arguments in a book-length format. We decided to write a hybrid book, which is based on scholarship and proposes a central argument about the roots of the Russo-Ukrainian war, but is accessible also to a wider audience.
Q: This February we are approaching the two-year anniversary of Russia鈥檚 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In your opinion, how has public discussion and understanding of the conflict evolved since the start of the full-scale invasion? Are there still certain misconceptions that academics, journalists, or politicians have on the nature of the war?
MP: Understanding has increased significantly since February 2022. First, the NATO-expansion-made-Putin-do-it argument has been thoroughly debunked, not just by the efforts of many scholars, including us, but by post-2022 events. In 2023, Finland, a country with a long border with Russia joined NATO without Putin trying to prevent this further NATO expansion, without him making nuclear threats about it, and without any Russian military buildup to defend from a NATO threat from Finland. On the contrary, Russia has left its new NATO border undefended as it continues to concentrate on trying to conquer Ukraine, which remains outside of NATO. Second, most people now understand that the war isn鈥檛 a border dispute over Russian-speaking Ukrainian territories as they see how ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainians have flocked to defend their country from the invader just as vigorously as any other Ukrainian citizens. Gone is also the assumption that Ukraine is divided and large parts of it want to join Russia, given consistent evidence from Ukraine that an overwhelming majority is committed to a European and NATO-integration path. Finally, the early 2022 fears that Putin would escalate the war to a nuclear confrontation have declined significantly as it has become clear that when Russian forces lose on the battlefield, Russia鈥檚 leadership acts rationally and orders withdrawal and attempts to regroup.
However, some misconceptions do remain and the most pernicious one is the deeply-seeded assumption that Russia is too big and too powerful to lose this war. The media tends to interpret each tiny advance by Russia as the harbinger of Russian victory, while it ignores much bigger Ukrainian successes and emphasizes where Ukraine fell short of its goals. For example, Ukraine managed to inflict such serious damage to Russia鈥檚 Black Sea fleet that Russia was forced to withdraw from the Western Black Sea and Ukraine unilaterally reopened the grain shipping corridor without Russia鈥檚 cooperation. As a result of the success of the summer counteroffensive, Ukraine鈥檚 grain export volumes have returned to pre-war levels, yet the dominant narrative in the media is that the counteroffensive failed because Ukraine did not liberate significant swaths of territory. The second problematic misconception that stubbornly persists is the wishful thinking that the Russian regime is open to negotiations and concessions from Ukraine, either on neutrality or on territory, would end the war. Putin repeatedly states in every single interview that Russia will stop only after it establishes full control over Ukraine, yet some refuse to take this clear message seriously.
Q: 鈥淓ntangled histories鈥� and 鈥渄iverging states鈥� brings to mind the bifurcation of knotted threads, in which the initial point, the 鈥榚ntangled histories鈥� must break free from the knot or remain linked. How do you present this break in your book, and why does Russia see it as a threat to its own Imperialist and authoritarian political systems?
As we explain in the book, the disentanglement was gradual as an ever increasing portion of Ukrainian citizens committed strongly to the country鈥檚 independence and sovereignty. There were several critical junctures where examples of Ukrainians standing up for democracy and independence were followed by Russia escalating its attempts to impose political control over Ukraine and pull it back into its orbit. In the 2004 Orange Revolution, Ukrainians defended their democracy and what followed was hostility from Russia towards both the domestic and the foreign policies of the new Ukrainian government. After the 2014 Euromaidan when Ukrainians again stood up to defend democracy and the rule of law, Russia launched its first military aggression against Ukraine by invading and annexing Crimea and jumpstarting an insurgency in Donbas. But again, this Russian aggression only increased and solidified Ukrainians鈥� commitment to their independent state as growing majorities supported domestic reform and Euroatlantic foreign policy orientation. Throughout this growing divergence, a majority of Ukrainians kept hoping that an independent Ukraine can co-exist in a friendly relationship with its Russian neighbour, but Russia鈥檚 growing commitment to reimperialization made such co-existence impossible. Both Putin鈥檚 personal obsession with reclaiming Russia鈥檚 imperial influence in the neighborhood and the boost in popularity that he received from the Russian population after the annexation of Crimea paved the way to the full-scale invasion in 2022. In turn, the past two years have become the final rupture in the Ukrainian-Russian relationship. Now overwhelming majorities of Ukrainians believe that the two countries cannot restore a friendly relationship and wish for Ukrainian victory in the war, which would allow Ukraine to save its independent statehood and fortify and protect itself from another Russian attack.
Q: You dedicate a chapter of your book to historical memory, language and citizenship, important factors that are the cornerstones of national identity. In what ways has Ukrainian culture (literature, music, oral history, etc.), sustained Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression and invasion?
MP: In the book, we demonstrate that Ukrainian culture and identity are, of course, predate Ukrainian independent statehood by centuries. What independent statehood over the past 30 years allowed was the flourishing of Ukrainian culture without the oversight and intermittent suppression by the Russian imperial center. Russia is actively destroying Ukrainian culture by murdering Ukrainian writers, artists, musicians, and actors, by burning hundreds of thousands of books in Ukrainian in the occupied territories, by banning education in Ukrainian, and by bombing or looting cultural institutions (museums, cultural centers, theaters), so Ukrainian culture is not only sustaining Ukrainian resistance, producing and consuming Ukrainian culture is in itself resistance to Russia鈥檚 genocidal attempt to erase Ukrainian nationhood through this war.
Q: You and Shevel argue that Ukraine鈥檚 desire for European integration as a sovereign state is essential to understanding Russia鈥檚 war on Ukraine. Why are events such as Euromaidan and President Zelenskyy鈥檚 continued efforts to court other European democracies, vital to Ukraine鈥檚 desired European integration and independence from Russian political influence? As more European countries elect far-right leaning governments with anti-EU sentiments, how sustainable is this desire for European integration?
MP: Ukraine鈥檚 European integration desire is essential to understanding this war because right now Europe and Russia are antithetical political communities. By seeking to join other European democracies, Ukraine is, by definition, turning its back to Russia鈥檚 autocracy. Moreover, it is important to remember that Russia鈥檚 military aggression against Ukraine started in 2014 precisely as Russia鈥檚 attempt to block Ukraine鈥檚 European integration path. While far-right, anti-EU governments might be in office in some EU member states, as long as the EU remains an area of open political competition, rule of law, and freedom of speech, conscience, and economic exchange, Ukrainians will continue to seek accession with fervour.
Q: Your first book, 鈥淧oliticized Justice in Emerging Democracies: A Study of Courts in Russia and Ukraine鈥� deals primarily with how political competition in emerging democracies can 鈥渆gg on rather than restrain鈥� power-hungry politicians, resulting in your main finding being that the 鈥渕ore competitive regime鈥� of Ukraine, saw that incumbents leaned 鈥渕ore forcefully on the courts and obtained more favorable rulings.鈥� How many of these findings, if any, still apply to Ukraine today?
MP: Theoretically, the argument of my first book holds. There is now an extensive body of research by other scholars that shows that in hybrid regimes or electoral democracies, political competition does hurt judicial independence by creating incentives for insecure incumbents to pressure the courts for favorable rulings. In regard to Russia and Ukraine, however, the findings of the book are firmly rooted in the 1990s-early 2000s era and do not extend to the present. Neither Russia, nor Ukraine are the same regimes today. Russia backslid from a hybrid regime to a fully consolidated autocracy, whereas Ukraine built a firmer foundation for stable democracy through important institutional reforms since 2014. So the contrast that the book describes is no longer the case鈥攖hese days Russian courts are fully subordinated to the regime鈥檚 political whims, whereas Ukrainian courts have developed a measure of independence, though civil society continues to push for more progress in the area of rule of law every day.
Q: How are your readers engaging with the book? What kind of feedback and engagement have you received from colleagues, peers, and students?
MP: The book has only been out for about a month, but we are very happy with the positive feedback that we have received so far. Colleagues have called our 鈥渄ivergence-led-to-war鈥� hypothesis the most convincing explanation of the conflict and many have started adopting the book in their teaching. As far as we know, in this winter semester, the book has been assigned to students at John Hopkins SAIS, UQAM, Harvard, and the US National War College. We are also giving book talks in both North America and Europe and have planned several 鈥渁uthor-meets-critics鈥� panels at academic conferences. The reaction from the wider audience has also been positive as we are giving dozens of radio and podcast interviews on the book. The Moscow Times is the first media outlet that has published a (positive) review of the book and we look forward to others and to reaching a broad readership.
Q: What鈥檚 next for you in 2024?
MP: 2024 will be a very busy year of many conferences, book talks, and other events aimed at getting a wider reach for our book鈥檚 main argument, but I am also continuing my research on Ukrainian political development. I have a series of articles in the works that analyze Ukraine鈥檚 road to EU accession. I hope that 2024 will be the year of Ukraine鈥檚 military victory in the war after which the country can focus its efforts fully on reconstruction and on making progress towards becoming an integral part of Europe, a goal that the vast majority of Ukrainians support.
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Maria Popova听is an Associate Professor of Political Science at 平特五不中, Scientific Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal, and Editor of the Cambridge Elements Series on Politics and Society from Central Europe to Central Asia. Her work explores rule of law and democracy in Eastern Europe. Her first book听Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies, which won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies book prize in 2013, examines the weaponization of law to manipulate elections and control the media in Russia and Ukraine. Her recent articles have focused on judicial and anticorruption reform in post-Maidan Ukraine, the politics of anticorruption campaigns in Eastern Europe, conspiracies, and illiberalism. Her new book with Oxana Shevel on the roots of the Russo-Ukrainian war entitled 鈥淩ussia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States鈥� is now available from Polity Press:听听