2016/01/01 by Pål Kolstø · 4 citations
Social Sciences · #European and Russian Geopolitical Military Strategies #Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics #European Politics and Security
paper · doi:10.5612/slavicreview.75.3.0702
openalex publication_date 2016/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The article analyzes how the nationalist segment of the Russian public has engaged in attempts to interpret and evaluate the Crimean annexation and the war in Donbass. The Crimean annexation was justifi ed in the Kremlin by a novel use of nationalist rhetoric. Initially, this rhetoric paid off particularly well—boosting Putin’s popularity ratings and endearing him to virtually all Russian nationalists. He could present himself as the foremost defender both of ethnic Russians abroad and of Russia’s state interests, stealing the thunder from Russian ethnonationalists and the state-centered nationalists alike. However, in spite of the initial euphoria, the war in Eastern Ukraine has antagonized the nationalist segment of the Russian public which had been won over by the Kremlin only months earlier. Russian TV footage of burned houses in East Ukrainian towns and hamlets prompted questions about why Putin was not doing more to defend them.