A Comparative Analysis

Rationale of the Study

Since the end of Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine gains independence and begins the

process of becoming a market economy. It also acquires a large arsenal of nuclear weapons that

previously belonged to the Soviet Union. But, in 1994, Ukraine surrenders its nuclear weapons

under the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for Moscow’s promise to maintain Ukraine’s

independence, sovereignty, and existing borders.

Besides all that, the tension between Ukraine and Russian didn’t come to an end. As

Administration of Borys Yeltsin and Vladimir pro-Russian presidents have experienced tensions

with Russia. For Russian leaders, Victor Yuchenko and Petro Poroshenko were not the only

troublesome Ukrainian presidents. In addition, to moderate pro-Russian presidents Leonid

Kuchma and Russophile and Sovietphile President Viktor Yanukovych, Yeltsin and Putin had

tense relations.

Kuzio’s article specifically is the first article that explains and discusses why the crisis

between Russia and Ukraine became deeper, and it does so by examining three major areas. The

first point is the various other sources in 1991, when liberated Russia seized soviet institutions

and proceeded on the nation’s state creation, whereas Ukraine received relatively less and agreed

to start a state from scratch. Much of the reporting on the Ukraine-Russian situation since 2014

has incorrectly assumed that this is a new phenomenon. But the truth is, the tension between

these countries have existed a long time ago since Soviet’s disintegration. Russia and Ukraine

emerged from the Soviet Union as sovereign republics with vastly different Soviet legacies and

policies. Their elites caused distinct outcomes. The conservative tilt in Russian politics could be
understood in this light as the result of the elites finally embracing mass common sense. In

independent Ukraine, the nationalist right has always been weak and unpopular, whereas in

Russia, it has been popular in various forms in Russia. No aspect of the Russian–Ukrainian

conflict has been more surprising than the discovery that Ukrainian national identity, both ethnic

and civil, is significantly stronger than virtually anybody expected, whilst Russian national

identity is far more divided and weak (Golbe, 2016, pp. 37-38). The strength of national

communism in Ukraine and Russia was a second significant difference between the two

countries. The way ordinary Russians perceive the situation in and with Ukraine is substantially

influenced by nationalism, which is not always bigoted and hostile. From the Russian civil war

to the breakup of the Soviet Union, national communism was a major political movement in

Ukraine in the Soviet Union. During the Russian civil war, the strength of Ukrainian identity and

left-wing Ukrainian political groups forced. During the Cold War, Soviet officials agreed to

allow Ukrainians to create their own republic and consent to an indigenization program in 1920s.

Indigenization aided Ukrainianization, which Stalin suppressed in the early 1930s for fear of

boosting Ukrainian nationalism. Ukrainian immigrants had more clout, and the state actively

backed de-Stalinization during the majority of the country's 25 years of independence,

combining de-Stalinization with national identity and, since 2015, de-communization (Kuzio,

2017, pp. 289-302).

In the article, the second point, which discusses various points in time, democracy and

marketization have occurred. A comparison of Ukrainian and Russian state and nation-building

programs demonstrate a variety of approaches. Ukraine has to construct the majority of the

infrastructure starting in 1991. Russia inherited the institutions essential for an independent state

from the USSR. Russia inherited not only structures, equipment, and staff, but also mentalities,
working cultures, and worldviews. Since 2000, this has been evident in the Siloviki’s dominance

over politics, government, and the economy, as well as the country’s status as a meritocracy.

Russian elites are resistant to recognize the Russian Federation as the successor to the Tsarist

Empire and the Soviet Union. Pay attention to critiques of Tsarist and Soviet policy regarding

Ukrainians and other non-Russians. This contains an un-readiness to allow critical inquiry of

‘blank areas’ in Russian history; this occurred briefly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but was

stopped under Putin. This aims to reconcile the inconsistencies within each regime: certain

aspects of the new narrative are likely to denounce Stalin’s inhumanity and Stalinism, while

others will praise industrialization and the Great Patriotic War as successes of Russian-led Soviet

society. In this light, neither re-Stalinization nor de-Stalinization in Putin’s Russia seems likely.

De-Stalinization and public awareness campaigns on the Holodomor began in the Ukrainian

diaspora on the 50th anniversary of the Holocaust in 1983, extended to Soviet Ukraine in the

second half of the 1980s, and gained state support from practically all Ukrainian governments

after 1991. Nonetheless, if current initiatives continue, critical evaluations of Soviet foreign and

internal policies will become more widespread (Sherlock 2016, pp. 45-59). The failed August

1991 putsch in Ukraine, as in the other former Soviet republics, resulted in a fast and dramatic

change in the political environment. Ukraine and Russia have pursued separate nation-building

agendas since 1991, as Ukraine has always been a strong defender of post-communist

governments’ territorial integrity. To add up, the elites of Russia and Ukraine do not have similar

nationality policies for their respective national minorities.

The third point that is worth mentioning is the distinction which emerges as more than just

as the result of shifts, with Russia resorting to imperialist nationalism of power and the transition

of Ukraine from quadruple to post-colonial. Ukraine began a quadruple transition of state and
nation building, democratization, and marketization from 1994. While Russia under Yeltsin

pursued the latter two, the top-down Soviet legacy tainted state building and ideas for nation-

building were perplexing. Russia’s state capitalism and democratic retreat began in 2000. The

two countries’ economic strategies and levels of democratization have radically diverged due to

authoritarianism. The process of democratization never began or, if it did, stagnated, and the

countries evolved into hybrid regimes that incorporated components of democratic and

authoritarian governance in various combinations (Cameron and Orenstein, 2011). Since its

independence in 1991, Ukraine’s democratization has been pretty steady. An examination of the

dynamics of pluralism by default reveals an important but largely unacknowledged contradiction

in many countries’ transition processes: the same factors that facilitate democratic political

competition can also thwart the development of stable, well-functioning democratic institutions

(Way, nd.).

NATO is a military alliance tasked with developing a shared security strategy. Invasion of

NATO member means that it is also considered as an invasion of all countries that are member

of NATO. The invasion will be met with resistance from all NATO members. Throughout the

second world war, there were two major superpowers present, the United States and the Soviet

Union. In this time, Russia and NATO has no comparison between each other specifically in

terms of defense spending.

Tsygankov’s article which is entitled “The sources of Russia's fear of NATO” basically

examines Russia’s attitude toward NATO since the start of its eastern expansion. The Russia’s

response to the enlargement progressed from attempts to mitigate the potential harm through

limited collaboration to passive and finally outright containment policies. And because of it, it

resulted in risky alliance activity and concentration of Russian military forces on the Western
frontier. Furthermore, the article also discussed regarding the factors that could be helpful for us

to fully understand the Russia’s shift of perception towards NATO beginning with a potential

partner to a renewed military threat through examining Russia’s history of viewing the alliance

as a potential threat and Russia’s Post-Cold war interaction towards NATO. That helps

reinforced the historically developed perception and made Russia learned because of their

interaction with United States until this present time. In this article, “The sources of Russia's fear

of NATO”, the author argued that Russia’s dread of NATO stems from a long-standing

perception as NATO’s actions that contributed to resurrecting that perception in Moscow after

the cold war ended.

The objective of this comparative analysis is it aims to examine the main message the author

is trying to convey, the article’s targeted audiences and the purpose of the article. In this writing,

I will be going to examine the similarities and differences of the two article based on what they

are trying to perceive toward the readers.

Review Related Literature

Ukraine’s “muddling through”: National Identity and Post-Communist transition” (Riabchuk,

2012, pp. 439-446) state that the deep identity schism has a significant impact on Ukraine’s post-

communist development, making it unable to effectively consolidate any political system,

democratic or authoritarian. This article’s main purpose is to examine the constituting history of

roots of the different identities that Ukraine have. Additionally, it also examines the other aspects

and impacts of two opposite interpretation of Ukraine’s past and future.

In the article “Stalinism and Russian and Ukrainian National Identities” (Kuzio, 2017, pp.

289-302) state that stalinization was not a significant issue for Russian émigrés, and it was

supported by the USSR for 50 of its 69 years, and the Russian state since 2000. Over the bulk of
Ukraine's 25 years of independence, émigrés were increasingly dominant, and the state actively

backed de-Stalinization, which was combined with national identity and, since 2015, de-

communization. The purpose of this article is to investigate as to how the different perspectives

of Joseph Stalin’s provision add to the separate national identities of Russia and Ukraine prior to

its reinforcement during 2014 crisis between the two countries.

“Russian Stereotypes and Myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians and Why Norovossya Failed”

(Kuzio, 2019, pp. 297-309) explains that because of the stereotypes and myths of Ukraine being

an artificial state, the Russian identity continuously misread Ukraine’s identity. This article

addresses two concerns that are intertwined. To begin, consider the elements that led Russia to

believe that its Novorossiya (New Russia) initiative, which was initiated during the 2014.

Second, why did Ukrainian national identity differ from Russian stereotypes and myths, and how

did this contribute to the Novorossiya project’s failure. It is related to the article of Kuzio

because it tackles about the different elite identities and the failure of Novorossiya.

“Russian Identity and Ukraine Crisis” (Goble, 2016, pp. 37-43) state that no aspect of the

Russian–Ukrainian conflict has been more surprising than the discovery that Ukrainian national

identity, both ethnic and civil, is significantly stronger than virtually anybody expected, whilst

Russian national identity is far more divided and weak. This article discusses about the

Ukrainian identity being both ethnic and stronger and Russian identity being far more

fragmented and weak.

“The Russia-NATO mistrust: Ethnopobia and double expansion to contain “The Russian Bear”

(Tsygankov, 2013, 179-188) explains that was developed as one of the superpowers during

World War II that substitute that views Russia’s fear towards NATO, since Russia’s unknown

capabilities commanded aggressive, rather than a hegemonic answer. The study examines the
decision to expand NATO without include Russia. It also inquires as to why the process came to

a halt in 2008. Not because of the modified perspective of Russia, instead it is because of the fear

of the expanding power and aggressiveness. Example is the Kremlin’s used of power way back

Caucasus’ war that changes the West’s perspective regarding to the expansion. It relates to

Tsygankov’s article because it discusses about the fear of Russia towards NATO.

Main Points

At this point, I argue that Russia’s descent to authoritarian was a great part of the

dominance of the conception of its national identity. Whereas, Ukraine’s hegemonic identity

have failed to materialize a public debate regarding its national that led to a significant part of the

political elite embracing significantly more liberal and democratic views of its identity. The idea

of national identity is the common term used but is also rarely defined in the literature of

nationalism. However, in the field of democratization, it turns out that is one of the missing

variables. Instead, it is defined by intuitionalists, elite, and society predominately through

rational choice. In this analysis I define national identity as one of the collective identities.

Hence, national identity as one of the membership requirements that best suited for the structure

of the country. National Identities, like nations, are basically created and it became the subject of

the process of state and nation building. Because of it, national identity can achieve hegemonic

status through the beliefs that constituted the natural of things for the majority of the people’s

behavior that have a relevant political outcome. Elites have significantly more power to build

instructions and develop its own national identities in transition societies that has been

characterized through the civilization. In such circumstances, elites may try to eliminate current

dominant ideas of identity, which could be counterproductive to their political ambitions.

Adoption of an identity, on the other hand, imposes a set of political duties on its bearers, as
terms are defined based on the notion. In other words, adopting an identity is both restricted and

a goal- defining decision for political actors. To shorten, the enactment of national identity really

influences great influence to the identity of these countries.

Conclusion

To conclude, the two articles are very relevant today as it relates to the current situation

to the tension between Russia and Ukraine today. These two articles have discussed a wide range

of topic that helps enlighten the knowledge of the readers about the basis of the reasons why

tension happens between Ukraine and Russia, as well as the reason of why did Russia view

NATO as a competitor, from viewing it as a future partner. Despite all the information given, we

can’t deny the fact that there is also information that are being included in the two articles, that

needs to be explained and improved for the readers to fully understand the articles. For their

differences, Kuzio’s article was basically examining the different identities and transitions that

has happened between Russia and Ukraine. While, Tsygankov’s article was examining the

sources of the fear of Russia towards NATO. For recommendations, I would like to recommend

that these articles should be revised in a way that the readers would read it, not just because it is

needed, but because of its importance and relevance for today’s situation.

References:

Kuzio, T., Russian and Ukrainian elites: A comparative study of different identities and

alternative transitions, Communist and Post-Communist Studies (2018),

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.10.001

Tsygankov, A.P., The sources of Russia’s fear of NATO, Communist and Post-Communist

Studies
(2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2018.04.002

Kuzio, T. (2019, December). Russian stereotypes and myths of Ukraine and Ukrainians and why

Novorossiya failed. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X19300546

Golbe, P. (2016, March). Russian national identity and the Ukrainian crisis.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X15000653

Kuzio, T. (2017, December). Stalinism and Russian and Ukrainian national identities. Retrieved

from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X17300454

Riabchuk, M. (2012, December). Ukraine’s ‘muddling through’: National identity and post-

communist transition.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X12000426

Dickinson, P. (2020, November 2). How Ukraine’s Orange Revolution shaped twenty-first

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revolution-shaped-twenty-first-century-geopolitics/

Haran, O. (2012, July 23). From Presidentialism to Parliamentarianism: Strengthening or

Weakening Democracy in Ukraine? https://www.ponarseurasia.org/from-presidentialism-to-

parliamentarianism-strengthening-or-weakening-democracy-in-ukraine/

Kuzio, T. (2015, April 1). Competing Nationalisms, Euromaidan, and the Russian‐Ukrainian

Conflict. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Competing-Nationalisms%2C-Euromaidan

%2C-and-the-Kuzio/7bae5db2e36640e45c772084737f4d6fe976de76