Ukraine war has split Russia into five tribes
By Leonid Bershidsky
It's a rare year that completely reshapes your national identity, and 2022 has been such a year for Russians. The war on Ukraine launched by Vladimir Putin will have irreversible, indelible consequences for the nation's place in the world and for millions of people who, in one way or another, identify themselves with Russia, its language and its cultural heritage.
First, a disclaimer. Ukrainians are the protagonists of 2022. But I'm not going to talk about those heroes and sufferers here: Their current identity began to coalesce earlier, following their first attempt at a revolution in late 2004. The war has all but completed that transformation — a process of switching to a language of their own and choosing unequivocally to belong to the West, more narrowly to eastern Europe. It is up to them to express the powerful identity now forged in battles, in grief, in bomb shelters and forced displacement.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___