RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM VIS-À-VIS UKRAINIAN IDENTITY, РОСІЙСЬКИЙ ІМПЕРІАЛІЗМ VIS-À-VIS УКРАЇНСЬКА ІДЕНТИЧНІСТЬ

<jats:p>In the 18th century, Moscow appropriated the name and heritage of the formerly medieval Kyivan Rus’ for a strategic purpose: to facilitate its transformation from the Moscow State, recently freed from Mongol rule yet still shaped by Mongol political culture, into a new empire claiming the legacy of the illustrious pre-Mongol, federative Rus’ civilization. From these beginnings, Mongol-inspired, autocratic and centralized tsarist system emerged, becoming a major obstacle to the development of both: the premodern ethnic and the modern national Ukrainian identity. Today, Russian imperial identity continues to affect Ukraine profoundly, acting as a transparent, oldfashioned, aggressive, personalist empire attacking the very essence of Ukrainian nationhood. Russia increasingly displays an anti-democratic sentiment toward what it calls the “totalitarian West”, openly denying Ukrainian identity whenever Ukraine seeks to orient itself westward. Putin’s aggressive disparagement and rejection of the Ukrainian national idea have only strengthened Kyiv’s determination to finally break free from the Moscow’s fatal gravitational pull. At the same time, in its existential defensive war, the intra-Ukraine’s previously divided and complex identities are drawing closer together, united around a shared proEuropean future and forming a more coherent, inherently anti-Russian and proEuropean national identity. Conversely, Russia’s invasion has accelerated the transformation of its own political system into an openly dictatorial – and in some respects proto-fascist – regime. Using insights from sociology, history, and the constructivist school of international relations, this article examines Russia as a decisive factor shaping Ukrainian international relations and as an independent variable influencing the very existence of Ukraine.</jats:p>