National Identity in Time of War: Ukraine after the Russian Aggressions of 2014 and 2022

This article analyzes changes in Ukrainian national identity in the wake of Russian military interventions of 2014 and 2022. It is based on five nationwide surveys from different years, from before the 2014 intervention to ten months into the full-blown invasion of 2022, and two series of focus group discussions conducted in the same cities (Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Chernivtsi) in early 2015 and mid-2022. My analysis demonstrates that in the wake of foreign aggressions, national identity not only became more salient to Ukrainians, it acquired a more radical meaning, thus imbuing the supposedly civic attachment to homeland with potentially exclusive ethnocultural content.