A War That Does Not Say Its Name. What Is Putin’s Russia Waging in Ukraine?

This chapter aims at shedding some light on the patterns of this official Russian discourse, analyzing its preconceptions and articula- tions, some of its key omissions too. It deconstructs the image of a de- fensive “operation”, studying successively the motif of tyranny of US hegemony and its unipolar world order, and the allegation that Western (always) enemies had been working for centuries at thwarting Russian unity. Finally, it turns to the claim that the Russian government was de- fending the authentic and correct values of humanity, embodied by the Russian social and moral order in contrast with a decadent West. In that narrative, Putin’s circle may have been expressing some genuine fear about Russia’s very existence as a culture, power, or even civilization. In their articles, speeches and editorials, the Kremlin’s mouthpieces build the notion of the war against Ukraine as a fundamentally defensive, protective and preventive endeavor. Moreover, they toy with historical precedents and international legal frameworks to claim the righteousness of the invasion. This narrative is organized along three main threads: the resistance to US hegemony, the necessity to restore Russian historico-spatial unity, and Russia’s duty to save its existence from the corrosion of alien values. It seems highly plausible that the president of the Russian Federation partly believes this mental construction. Once again in Russian and Soviet history, the authorities have tried to find a “usable past” and usable identity markers. But this time the Russian Federation as a geopolitical power does not possess the strongest assets – militarily, culturally, in terms of prestige, or even demographically. In search of this hook on which to hang its national pride and the regime’s legitimacy, the Kremlin muses again with imperial sirens, with the idea that Russia does not have clearly bound limits to its civilizational pretenses. It may be on this specific point that the plans of the elites meet the dreams and wishes of the ordinary citizens.