‘Two Ukraines’ Reconsidered: The End of Ukrainian Ambivalence?

Abstract The 2014 R usso‐ U krainian war, euphemistically called the ‘ U kraine crisis’, has largely confirmed, on certain accounts, a dramatic split of the country and people's loyalties between the proverbial ‘East’ and ‘West’, between the ‘ E urasian’ and ‘ E uropean’ ways of development epitomized by R ussia and the E uropean Union. By other accounts, however, it has proved that the U krainian nation is much more united than many experts and policymakers expected, and that the public support for the Russian invasion, beyond the occupied regions of Donbas and Crimea, is close to nil. This article does not deny that U kraine is divided in many respects but argues that the main – and indeed the only important – divide is not between ethnic R ussians and U krainians, or R ussophones and U krainophones, or the ‘East’ and the ‘West’. The main fault line is ideological – between two different types of U krainian identity: non/anti‐ S oviet and post/neo‐ S oviet, ‘ E uropean’ and ‘East S lavonic’. All other factors, such as ethnicity, language, region, income, education, or age, correlate to a different degree with the main one. However divisive those factors might be, the external threat to the nation makes them largely irrelevant, bringing instead to the fore the crucial issue of values epitomized in two different types of U krainian identity.