Constructing a Russian Ukraine: Putin’s war of Russification

Russification can be defined as a set of policies or processes that encourage non-Russians to adopt the Russian language and culture. This seeks to increase Russia’s influence and ultimately domination in non-Russian spaces. Weaponizing language and culture is a strategy for claiming and maintaining power.

Throughout Russia’s war on Ukraine, President Putin has increasingly used Russification to exert power in territories he has annexed; this is necessary to understand to comprehend Russian intervention. Putin’s political strategy isn’t novel, it is intrinsically imperial. Yet, the demolition of Ukrainian cities and ongoing attempts to reconstruct them as Russian metropolises characterizes his use of it as mobilised and physically destructive. Does Putin’s Russification of Ukraine signify the dawning of a new Russian Empire?  

Putin has rapidly deployed Russification in Russian-occupied territories. Policy methods in Ukraine are diverse, highly coercive, and permeate culture. Such intervention is most visible in three domains of Ukrainian life: citizenship, education, and residency. Residents are coerced into getting Russian passports and swearing an oath of loyalty. The development of mobile and temporary passport offices across occupied territories demonstrates the intensity of measures. Those who resist citizenship have been denied supplies of necessities and are imprisoned in recently established detention centres. Given their greater reliance on necessities, the imposition of citizenship disproportionately impacts vulnerable individuals; without Russian citizenship, survival is bleak. Regarding education, a standardised Russian curriculum has been imposed, marked by Russian language and reproduction of “superior” Russian mythology. Further, the Kremlin has incentivised migration into occupied spaces, and deported individuals who resist Putin’s intervention. Military assimilation, coercion and deportation are new realities for residents, who find themselves living in constant fear. Putin’s attempts to Russify Ukraine are saliently mobilised.  

However, Putin’s efforts follow centuries of Russification imposed in Ukraine and other neighbouring states, and forms merely another manifestation of the policy. Russification was integral to the expansion of the Russian Empire and the latter Soviet state. In Ukraine, the policy became standardised during the reign of Catherine II (1762–96) who extended it to all spheres of social life in Ukraine. This programme was upheld throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century. Significant resistance emerged in the light of the 1917 Russian Revolution and Ukrainian patriotic sentiment. Yet, the new Soviet leadership intensified Russification policy as a means of extending and consolidating Communism in its spheres of influence. The effects of policy in the twentieth century were profound, particularly in regarding assimilation to the Russian language. By the 1980s, 78% of the Ukrainian population was fluent in Ukrainian, and 78.4% in Russian, despite Russian minority status. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainian identity and autonomy has been repressed by Russia. Putin’s efforts aren’t anomalous, but in fact typical of Russian imperial intervention.  

Despite its historical legacy, Putin’s deployment of Russification in Ukraine is unique. Intervention is distinctly militarised; this is through the demolition and reconstruction of spaces in Russian character. This strategy can first be observed in the Crimean Crisis in 2014, in which Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula and the city of Sevastopol. Russian military efforts escalated in 2022 when the Kremlin began usurping territory in Eastern Ukraine. The attack on Mariupol explicates such escalation. Forces destroyed public spaces such as monuments, healthcare facilities and venues, most famously the Mariupol theatre, of which killed 300-600 innocent civilians. The destruction of the tribute to Holodomor victims, referring to man-made regime induced by the Stalinist regime between  

1930-1933, is another notable example. This removed emblems of the city’s Ukrainian national identity. This is particularly powerful given that Ukrainian national identity is frequently marked by its struggle against Russia, such as in the case of the statue. This mass destruction gave way to swift reconstruction of public spaces with Russified character. The theatre undergoes reconstruction on top of its predecessor; it’s highly likely that Russia builds on top of unexcavated human remains. This form of Russification is also supported by domains that have been historically perpetrated- education, literature and language. Yet, physical destruction and reconstruction is unique to Putin’s intervention in Ukraine.   

Understanding Russification and its historical use provides an insight into Putin’s intentions for Ukraine. Given the accumulation of annexed and destroyed territory, Putin seeks power through this form of Russification. When considering that cites are destroyed to be rebuilt as Russian in character, it is evident that the Kremlin imagines a Ukraine that is distinctly Russian. This is eerily reminiscent of imperial intervention and forms another attack on Ukrainian autonomy. Yet, Putin’s manifestation has become marked by vast physical destruction. Further is anticipated in the centre and west of Ukraine.  

Are we witnessing another wave of Russian imperialism, one that’s more destructive than ever before?  

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