Ukraine, Russia and new wars

This article examines the relevance of the Russo-Ukrainian War to the new wars analysis. The Russo-Ukrainian War is formally a conventional war fought by states for the political control of territory (i.e., an ‘old war’), but it is also a conflagration that emerges out of the organized violence and instabilities of the post-Cold War world, and involves, in the form of Russia, a consummate ‘new war’ actor. What makes the Russo-Ukrainian War distinct from many other ‘new war’ settings is, however, the lack of its ‘mutual enterprise’ character. This is because Ukraine has, since 2014, sustained legitimate political institutions, albeit in a complex and still evolving form. Building on previous work on ‘civicness’, this article analyses the war as a contest between competing logics of authority. We argue that the ‘just war’ character of the Ukrainian resistance has been forged through an internationally constituted logic of civicness.