Conference abstracts
Chekalenko Liudmyla D.
Russia declared its independence on 12 June 1990, which meant independence from the USSR, and adopted the “Declaration of State Sovereignty.” This date is now celebrated as the “Day of Russia” in Moscow.
Russian ideological institutions have formulated a so-called “new doctrine” about a “special civilizational mission,” an “updated history,” and the “superiority and supremacy” of Russia over other peoples. Totalitarianism and imperialism of the Russian type, as well as exclusively “Russian Orthodoxy,” are among its main components.
The geopolitical instruments of Russian foreign policy include blackmailing other countries, particularly through the supply of energy resources, threats of military force, nuclear intimidation, war, territorial seizure, destruction of democratic foundations, and suppression of protests abroad.
Contemporary Russian policy, in the author’s opinion, represents a form of totalitarian ideology – a symbiosis of the main principles of fascism/Nazism and Stalinism. A typical manifestation of racism, by which fascism can always be recognized, is the use of lies: lies told both to one’s own people and to the world. Let us recall Joseph Goebbels, admired by Vladimir Putin: “A lie must be so outrageous that no one even imagines it could be a lie.”
Why did the Russian authorities choose Ukraine as a target of attack? In the author’s opinion, Ukraine represents everything unacceptable to Russia: a high intellectual level of development, the predominance of human values, the ideology of freedom, independent thinking, freedom of lifestyle and religion, economic potential, fertile land, and a hard-working population. Today, the goal of aggressive Russian policy is to remove Ukraine, which stands in the way of the invader’s dictates. Ukraine has become a battlefield of giants: democracy versus autocracy, good versus evil. The political toolkit of modern Russia is based on the principle “divide and conquer.”
Russian propaganda concerning history is mainly focused on discrediting and slandering Ukraine. The most common claims are the following:
1. Ukraine is to blame for the collapse of the USSR and must pay the price for it. We remind the reader: Russia declared its independence from the USSR on 12 June 1990 – this day is now celebrated as the “Day of Russia.” Ukraine declared its independence on 16 July 1990.
2. Ukraine’s geopolitical independence allegedly poses a threat to Russia.
To justify its intervention, the hostile propaganda machine “Russia Today” spreads the absurd claim that Ukraine “is a geopolitical anomaly.” According to this narrative, Russia will not be able to restore itself as a great power without Ukraine. Zbigniew Brzeziński famously observed that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.”
The invasion has displaced numerous higher education institutions, forcing universities and colleges from Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea to relocate to other parts of the country. Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 has had a devastating effect on the Ukrainian scientific community in particular. Russian shelling damaged 48 higher education institutions, eight of which were completely destroyed. Scientists and researchers whose institutions were not destroyed are forced to continue their work under constant risk of bombardment, frequent loss of electricity, heating, and water.
Russian occupiers are burning Ukrainian books. They especially hate textbooks on the history of Ukraine. The British Ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, called the actions of the occupiers against books a manifestation of Nazism. She accompanied her tweet with a photo of burned Ukrainian books and the hashtag #RussianAggression.
In 2017, the Russian authorities closed the Ukrainian Library in Moscow, which contained 52,000 books. Its employees, including the director, were arrested and imprisoned. Armed police confiscated part of the collection, and the director was put on trial for allegedly inciting ethnic hatred.
Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov is serving a 20-year prison sentence for alleged “terrorist attacks” in Crimea after what Amnesty International called “a show trial.”
Liquidation of Ukrainian organizations continues. In August 2020, a Russian court dissolved the regional Ukrainian organization in the Omsk region (Grey Ukraine). In July 2019, the activities of the World Congress of Ukrainians were declared “undesirable” on Russian territory.
The policy of the Russian aggressor is characterized by the devaluation of the individual and human rights. Concentration camps became the most brutal invention of totalitarianism. Imprisonment in such camps means not only physical but also moral extermination. Today, the Russian aggressor is again throwing Ukrainians into hastily organized concentration camps in the temporarily occupied territories.
First and foremost, Russia constantly seeks an enemy. If an external enemy cannot be eliminated, an internal enemy is invented. In Nazi Germany the internal enemy was the Jewish people; in Russia today the enemy is not only Ukrainians, but all citizens of Ukraine. Opponents are labeled “terrorists” and punished accordingly – a situation we observe in current practice.
There is strict control over the media, education, and science. Mass dismissals of journalists, teachers, and university professors who do not share the official viewpoint have become common. The TV channel “Rain” was closed, and the offices of foreign humanitarian organizations were shut down.
Human dignity is systematically humiliated. Peaceful protests are persecuted and equated with criminal activity. For example, Sergei Zuyev, Rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka), was arrested in October 2021 on charges of alleged embezzlement. He was removed from his post and placed in the notorious SIZO-1 prison “Matrosskaya Tishina.” The number of political prisoners is growing, while police power remains virtually unlimited.
European scientists express deep solidarity with Ukraine. They call for signing petitions demanding an end to Russian aggression and the withdrawal of Russian troops. Many countries and institutions have created programs to support Ukrainian researchers. The European Commission launched the “European Research Area for Ukraine” portal. The Horizon Europe and Euratom programs provided Ukrainian scientists with free participation. Clarivate and Elsevier opened free access to Web of Science and Scopus. Universities and governments in the EU, USA, Canada, Japan, Israel, Taiwan, Brazil and other countries introduced scholarships, grants and employment opportunities for Ukrainian academics.
After Vladimir Putin came to power, the Russian leadership launched an active campaign to eliminate civil society movements – both ethnic Russian and those of other nationalities. Cultural associations were banned, literature in minority languages was confiscated, publishing houses were closed, and independent media were suppressed. Opposition to this policy has existed throughout Russia.
British journalist Lawrence Britt, having studied seven fascist regimes, identified 14 common characteristics. These features, explored by scholars such as Roger Bourderon, Umberto Eco, Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, fully coincide with the characteristics of contemporary Russian fascism. At the same time, new traits specific to Russia have emerged: economic and intellectual backwardness in comparison with Western democracies, low educational levels, and an ideologically manipulated society.
The Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov believed that the roots of fascism in Russia lay in the Bolshevik coup of 1917, which, in his words, brought “not a cultural revolution, but fascism with great success.” The British historian Arnold Toynbee also noted the similarity between the fascist regimes of Italy and Russia in the first half of the twentieth century.
The American philosopher Jason Stanley, in his book How Fascism Works, and historian Timothy Snyder, in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, demonstrate that fascism exists even today and explain how it arises and functions. Umberto Eco, in his famous essay Ur-Fascism, warned humanity about this danger.
Today, Russian policy fully corresponds to German Nazism of World War II: it destroys civilizations and peoples and implements genocide. Russia’s goal is the destruction of Ukraine and Ukrainians. According to official Russian plans, Ukraine must be “denazified,” its population expelled, Russian settlers brought in, and Ukrainians deported to remote northern regions. More than 26,000 Ukrainian citizens have already been forcibly deported.
The international community has supported Ukraine. Cases have been brought before the International Criminal Court against Russia for war crimes and genocide. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. According to the indictment, these crimes have been committed since at least 24 February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the ICC for its historic decision, stating that more than 16,000 cases of forced deportation of Ukrainian children have already been documented. “Such a criminal operation would have been impossible without the order of the highest leader of the terrorist state,” he emphasized.
In conditions of rapid military escalation, Ukraine is forced to seek means of resistance and protection and to implement mechanisms for punishing the aggressor. These include international sanctions, appeals to the International Court of Justice, and cooperation with global security structures, including NATO, to defend peace.