A PEOPLE WHO THINK THEMSELVES A NATION ARE ONE:

Going as far back as the late 1990s and early 2000s, social science researchers like myself have emphasized how Ukraine's population, as a whole, was connecting less and less with Russia. At the same time, a discrete Ukrainian national identity was beginning to emerge.

This process sped up in 2013 and 2014, when the Russian-friendly President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, chose to sign an agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union rather than with the European Union. Yanukovych's decision sparked massive protests, known as the Maidan Revolution, which forced Yanukovych to flee the country.

Putin's subsequent actions to seize Crimea and aid separatist activities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine accelerated the weakening of the country's attachment to Russia and the yearning among Ukrainians to look westward to Europe.

Volodymyr Kulyk, one of the most important scholars on Ukrainian identity and public attitudes about Russia, argued in 2016 that the blurry line dividing those who identified with the West from those who supported close ties to Russia "shifted eastward" after 2014.

Political scientist Elise Giuliano, a specialist on the politics of ethnic identity, provided evidence in a 2018 article that the majority of ethnic Russians in the Donbas did not support the actions of the pro-Russian separatists seeking to secede from Ukraine.

Growing support after 2014 across Ukraine for an overarching, civic national identity - based on Ukrainian citizenship rather than ethnic identity - was the most crucial change. It offered a means to unite ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

My latest research examines the strength of a citizenship-based, civic national identity in Ukraine and how it relates to ethnic identity and language.

Quantitative and qualitative survey data offer evidence of how weak Ukrainians' attachment to Russia and how strong their attachment to Ukrainian citizenship had already become before 2022, even among ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

Most respondents viewed a civic national identity based on citizenship as an important part of their self-identity. More participants in the survey saw this kind of national identity as an important or even very important part of who they are than felt that way about the regions they live in, the language they speak or their ethnic identities.

Comments from respondents about the importance of being a Ukrainian citizen included statements like "Because I love my country"; "I do not betray my country"; and "I am proud of Ukraine, and I am a patriot."

The results also underscore that it is not contradictory for people to perceive this kind of national identity as an important part of their identity while also feeling the same way about their ethnic identity, spoken language or region. In Ukraine at least, ethnic identity and a multiethnic, civic national identity are not the incompatible rivals they're sometimes thought to be.

And so I wasn't surprised to read about Oleksandr Vilkul's staunch defense of Ukrainian sovereignty. A powerful politician in southeastern Ukraine, Vilkul had long espoused support for the rights of Russian speakers and closer ties with Russia. In early May 2022, The New York Times reported that the Russians approached Vilkul with an offer to align with the invading Russian forces.

Vilkul's response?

"Get lost."

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