New Directions in Women, Peace and Security

Colonization of minds: Ukraine between Russian colonialism and Western Orientalism

“…Together with paranoid “[i]nsinuations of the dangers of Ukrainian ‘nationalism’” 8 ( Mälksoo, 2022 : 2), this pacifistic stance effectively negated the political rights of the Ukrainian nation, thus following a pattern of rhetoric set by Russian propaganda that has been consistently framing Ukraine as a “NATO puppet state” fully stripped of its own agency and ruled by foreign forces. An example of such a framing is the very first sentence of Santoire’s (2022) , article “A Feminist Reality Check on Ukraine,” published on 14 February 2022, in which the author claims that “Ukraine has become a dangerous playground for great powers as Western countries and NATO are increasingly worried about renewed hostilities in the Donbas war.” Such a definition completely denies Ukraine’s agency as a sovereign state, reducing it to a passive, inert “playground” and rejecting the centuries-long history of Russian colonial aggression against Ukraine. Moreover, naming “the Donbas War” diminishes the war waged on Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2014 as a local “conflict of interest,” thus turning a blind eye to Kremlin’s direct responsibility for the violation of international laws and Ukraine’s territorial integrity.…”