Unveiling of Russian Colonial Past in Ukraine

Until recently, discussing Russia within the context of post-colonial studies was a rare occurrence, due to the prevailing narrative that Soviet dominance was rather occupation than colonization. The term “occupation” was used, e.g., by The Baltic States and former Eastern Bloc countries, to mitigate concerns of being labelled as colonized, which might negatively impact their European identity. This, however, created a major roadblock on the way to revealing the colonial past of Eastern European countries, and Ukraine in particular. Furthermore, it was considered rather unconventional to acknowledge Russian colonization of neighbouring countries (Chernetsky Reference Chernetsky2003, 32), particularly those that could be referred to as “white colonies” (Spivak et al. Reference Spivak, Condee, Ram and Chernetsky2006, 830) and shared common Slavic heritage.

The cooperation between the Soviet Union and global decolonization movements throughout Russia’s colonial history makes it even more challenging to address. (Moore Reference Moore2001, 112). Nevertheless, the governance style of Russia reveals a striking parallel with the Western colonial powers, as it continuously tried to implement a broad spectrum of power structures, like cultural hegemony, appropriation, assimilation, and marginalization of occupied territories throughout the history of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union and today.

While the global phenomenon of decolonization was advancing, the Soviet Union and later Russia exhibited limited signs of decolonization. Moreover, akin to colonial practices, Russia utilized energy dependency, military presence, the Russian language, and identity as a tool in the reinforcement of control and influence over neighbouring countries, including former Soviet territories, reminiscent of former colonies (Feinburg et al. Reference Feinburg, Harvey, Pushel and Sternfels2024, 17; Kushnir Reference Kushnir2022). Only after the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the war in Eastern Ukraine did Russia’s image in the West begin to deteriorate bringing attention to Russia’s imperialist tendencies and its use of power projection in neighbouring states.

This was brought to light by Vitaly Chernetsky (Chernetsky Reference Chernetsky2003), who in his article “Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine” discusses the depressing evidence that Russian scholars are advocating their colonial past and perceiving the legacy of Russian colonization as a positive and enlightening (1-2). Chernetsky also highlights how Russia ignores and ideologically underpins the experiences of the colonized which distorts the past and reinforces power imbalance in the present, legitimizing Russian dominance over Ukraine.

Moreover, since Putin resumed the presidency after the short shift, he notably embraced a colonial trajectory. In 2012, he explicitly articulated his imperial ambitions by employing the term “civilisation state” (Tsygankov Reference Tsygankov2016) to portray Russia as an entity inherently absorbing smaller cultures, including Ukraine’s, and thus justifying territorial expansion and cultural assimilation. Linda Kinstler highlights that Putin enforces objectification of Ukraine as he prefers to think of Ukraine as a southern province of Russia, his rightful possession, a territory that was mistakenly “gifted” by his short-sighted predecessors (Kinstler Reference Kinstler2022).

In the subsequent years, he proclaimed a “spiritual unity” between Russians and Ukrainians (Putin Reference Putin2021) and in an essay published in July 2021, Putin expounded on the concept of “historical unity”, contending that Ukraine and Russia were inexorably tied, constituting a single nation with a shared origin. Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric perpetuates a vision of unity between Russia and Ukraine, masking his colonial ambitions under the guise of common heritage. This “unity between two brother nations” in his article means the annihilation of Ukraine. It doesn’t take much to illustrate the harmful consequences of the belief in “brotherhood” and “unity”, as the state politics of the Russian Federation, right before our eyes, is targeting people, who made it only halfway towards their independence after the Soviets’ collapse in 1991 and stayed as so-called federal “national republics”. Over the time of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Russia utilised minority groups, especially those that are believed to have a higher rate of protest potential (like Tatars and Chechens). The ethnic minority troops, according to Vorobyov, experienced higher casualty rates compared to their Slavic counterparts (Al Jazeera Reference Vorobyov2022). Soldiers with roots in economically disadvantaged regions like Buryatia, Chuvashia and Dagestan are targeted for recruitment to the Russian army and suffer disproportionately higher casualties in Ukraine (Zagrebeliy and Bekker Reference Zagrebeliy and Bekker2023). The exploitation of minority groups helps Russia to perpetuate power imbalances and reinforces the narrative of dominance regardless of the threat of extinction of ethnic, linguistic, and religious minorities and their unique heritage.

The Russian elite and ordinary citizens seem to have a consensus regarding the country’s neo-imperial intentions (Kushnir Reference Kushnir2022) as the expansionist war on Ukraine heavily relies on a revanchist narrative. It is rooted in the colonial belief of Russia’s civilizing mission that gives the right to expand its cultural and territorial space (Feinberg et al. 2024, 28).

The Russian colonization of Ukraine is in many ways based on the Gramscian concept of cultural hegemony (Ali Reference Ali2015; Gramsci Reference Gramsci2011), as Russia manifested its cultural dominance through the imposition of the Russian language, culture, and political structures, limiting freedom of movement on Ukrainian territory, suppressing the Ukrainian language, and marginalizing national identity of Ukrainians. Russia, in its “White” and “Red” avatars extended control beyond physical domination to the realm of cultural production and representation, where Ukrainian achievements were subsumed under the umbrella of Russian or Soviet identity, erasing their distinct cultural heritage (Rus’ – Russia, Kyiv – Russian city). Russia marginalized everything that would contradict the image of “provincial”, “rustic” (Riabchuk Reference Riabchuk2014, 19), or even oriental (Said Reference Said1988) Ukraine.

Badior (Reference Badior2022) highlights that Ukrainian cultural and scientific achievements – the same as Estonian, Azerbaijani, or Yakut – were seen as those that belonged to the Empire and, later, to the Soviet Union; and this line continued even after 1991, when Russia “inherited the rights” to label the most important physical and symbolic Soviet heritage as its own.

For sure, Ukraine’s colonial experience could be argued from the racial point of view, if it is understood in the sense of drastic differences in skin colour or other aspects of physical appearance with the titular nation. Even though throughout history the population of Ukraine was predominantly white, we could also see some similarities in attitudes towards ethnic Ukrainians and other colonized people. Riabchuk (Reference Riabchuk2022, 49) refers to Frantz Fanon’s famous book “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952) when describing the inferior position of Ukrainians in empires. He emphasizes that the Ukrainian language was Ukrainian’s “black skin” and was used as a marker of subjugation and belonging to a disadvantaged group.

In the Russian Empire, the use of “wrong language” (i.e., “the Ukrainian language”) was setting people within the subordinate framework of a rural class of serfs (kripaks). Later, in the Soviet Union, it was embodied in a sense of inferiority of what Riabchuk (Reference Riabchuk2022, 49) calls the “kolhoz slaves” or collective farm labourers. Stalin’s regime’s suspicion of Ukrainian villagers’ disloyalty led to the stigmatization, exploitation, and imprisonment of people in rural areas. Same as in Western colonies, most of the Ukrainians in the Soviet Union received meagre compensation, if any, and lacked identification documents or freedom of movement. The opportunities for escape were limited to the propiska system e.g., internal visa, which needed to be acquired when leaving the rural area, long after the Soviet population had been granted internal passports.

However, a crucial distinction from Western-type colonization existed in Ukraine’s case. Any Ukrainian who successfully transitioned from the underprivileged rural regions i.e., internal colonies, to the more advanced urban centres had the opportunity to shed their stigmatised language and became “white” at least in the second generation (Riabchuk Reference Riabchuk2022, 49).

The process of “passing for white,” i.e., assimilation into the dominant Russian culture included the rejection of the native language and language-connected identity, cultivation of contempt for their own Ukrainian past, which often included the change of the name or surname to look and sound more “urban”, hence Russian. These processes were accomplished by the constant psychological trauma of their inferiority of being a “former black”, i.e., a “former Ukrainophone” trying to keep up by being “almost the same as being Russian” (Moore Reference Moore2001, 114), but at the same time being ashamed of their own rural and “uncultured” relatives.

The escape from the fixed social status during the Russian Empire and the chance to “pass for white” during the Soviet time was the very core idea of the place that is now known as Donbas. Both empires were inclusive enough to engage the most active Ukrainians in the imperial project. Disappearing in the “melting pot” of the massive Soviet industrial construction sites quickly emerged as the foot-worn path for those seeking to “wash away” their unprivileged languages and cultures in the limbo of hard labour and russification. For sure, such “dress code” can be often heard as the beginning of a family story of every second modern citizen of the Donbas region. These conditions were often seen as passable and were perceived as an opportunity and a form of relative freedom.

The following chapter delves into the historical and cultural development of the Donbas’ unique identity features shaped by complex socio-political dynamics and enduring colonization.

The Ukrainian? The Border? The Imperial? The Local? – Explosive identity Fusion in Donbas

The Wild FieldsFootnote ⁵, which covered the territory of modern Donbas, were sparsely populated, yet multicultural lands served as buffer between the Western and Eastern worlds (Shcherbak Reference Shcherbak2004). They accommodated various ethnic groups, including Krymchaks, Nogais, Crimean Tatars, and Ukrainians (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 174). The harsh environment of the steppe became the place of freedom for thousands of Ukrainian peasants escaping the corvee in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 174; Yakovenko Reference Yakovenko1997; Kuromiya Reference Kuromiya2003, 30).

These spontaneous settlements were especially active after the establishment of the Cossack state – Sich, making Wild Fields an intersection of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures (Plokhy Reference Plokhy2015). Emerging in a complex fusion of ethnicities, religions, and traditions, a borderland factor (Sukhomlinov Reference Sukhomlinov2008, 2) became the first key element that shaped the identity of people originating from Eastern Ukraine, and the lands of Donbas-to-be. Intertwined with the cult of freedom, attachment to the land, and the brutal nature of Cossackdom, this identity offered compliance to changes in administrative borders and economic landscapes, often resisting the influence of dominant ideologies while fostering the formation of hybrid and alternative identity models (Kryvytska Reference Kryvytska2017, 294).

The ominous Treaty of PereiaslavFootnote ⁶ (Magosci Reference Magosci2010, 230-236) marked the end of this freedom as the Cossack state merged into the Russian Empire. Under Catherine II, the Russian Empire transformed the region into “Novorossiya”, erasing indigenous memory and imposing imperial control. The renaming of settlements and the arrival of new colonists (like Greeks, Germans, Serbs, and Hungarians) further reshaped the cultural landscape (Bohulenko et al. Reference Volodymyr, Dadashov, Tutova and Tatarynov2010). The Ukrainians continued to arrive in mass as they were seeking unoccupied land because, in traditional Ukrainian inhabited territories, it was becoming scarce (Pashina Reference Pashina1997). This struggle was employed by the Russian Empire as a strategy for consolidation, which later became the core of the Russian-Ukrainian ethnic conglomerate guided by the principles of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality”. However, the Russian colonial dominance marginalized Ukrainians and restricted their influence in the socio-economic and socio-political trajectory of the region’s development. The local elite was almost non-existent (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 10), confining Ukrainians to rural communities and limiting their impact on the lands’ future despite numerical prevalence (Pashina Reference Pashina1997).

Rapid industrialization and urban development in Donbas equally attracted workers from bordering communities and from far away seeking better living conditions or profit (Hayko and Biletskiy Reference Hayko and Biletskiy2022).

The enforcement of the Russian language in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, coupled with the decline of agricultural activities due to the exploration of salt and coal mining, played a central role in fixing subordinate positions and the gradual russification of all non-Russian populations. None of the other languages used in Donbas could compete with it, as Russian has become the language of educational institutions, science, the press, and the “mainstream culture” (Prybitkova Reference Prybitkova2011). Despite being limited to work or service contexts at first, the Russian language (and hence Russian speakers) acquired an even more prevalent status. The languages of the remaining ethnic communities were slowly pushed to the periphery of everyday use (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 178) and their cultures got a strong stigma of inferiority. Under such circumstances, the Ukrainian cultural and lingual identity could only continue its development in Donbas spontaneously and intuitively, while the Russian identity was predominantly reinforced through the political structures (Kuzio Reference Kuzio2015).

The emerging conditions forced the local population into a mode of mimicry while keeping the element of their traditions in private, as accepting the Russian language and cultural superiority became a matter of survival on the one hand and reaching ambitions on the other. Such mimicry has become a basis for the second key feature of Donbas’ identity – its malleability.

Emerging as autonomous units numerous workers’ settlements of Donbas were almost entirely governed by associated enterprises and their residents showed little interest in the world around them. The physical burden, high rate of migration and living conditions prevailed over social and political intentions coming from Moscow and Kyiv, during the Russian Revolution, the rise and fall of Ukraine’s independence within Ukraine People’s Republic (1918-1922) and the establishment of the Soviet Union (Kuromiya Reference Kuromiya2003, 58).

The Soviet policy of nativization/ukrainization (korenizatsiya) aimed to attract and engage the essence of the newly formed Soviet Republics such as the peasantry and the nationally oriented elite, to involve them in the construction of the Soviet project. Predominantly Russian-speaking cities of Donbas revived their Ukrainian footprint and national consciousness through literature and theatre (Mace Reference Mace1983, 11-12). The booming cultural renaissance caught the Soviet leadership by surprise and was quickly suppressed by making nationalism a punishable offence (Martin Reference Martin1998). The Holodomor, terror, and deportations altered the demographic composition, eliminating Ukrainian culture and other ethnic identities (Kotihorenko Reference Kotihorenko2008; Pohl Reference Pohl2001; Nikolskiy et al. Reference Nikolskiy, But, Dobrov and Shevchenko2005).

In the interwar and post-World War II period, Donbas became a testing ground for the “Theory of the struggle between two cultures”, portraying Ukrainian culture as primitive and hindering modernization, while Russian culture was deemed progressive, aligning with the proletariat and urbanization (Parakhina Reference Parakhina2012). As in other cases of colonization, the proclamation of the significance of the Russian culture was nothing more in its essence but an attempt at assimilation (Bojcun Reference Bojcun2021).

Despite the severe russification and anti-national trajectory of Donbas’ development, the region was a birthplace for numerous notable Ukrainian writers and activists. Key Ukrainian figures, such as Vasil Stus, Volodymyr Sosura, Ivan Svitlichniy, and others emerged as prominent advocates for the rights of Ukrainian identity, language, culture, and self-determination, particularly during the late 50s and 60sFootnote ⁷. They protested the teaching of Ukrainian as a foreign or facultative language course in schools, as well as the prohibition of its use in professional institutions and universities (Kuromiya Reference Kuromiya2003, 466). Unfortunately, the average resident of Donbas was securely shielded from the “nationally obsessed”. The term of popular Russian chauvinistic discourse alluded to the quasi-medical formula “sexually obsessed” (seksualno ozabochennyi) and was used to label the Ukrainian activists in the official press at the time (Ryabchuk Reference Ryabchuk2010, 9).

The village, once the core of ethnic culture, was pushed aside, while cities in Donbas became migration hubs, overshadowing the once-vital villages (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 22; Kuromiya Reference Kuromiya2003, 367; 447). The proletarian internationalism in the late Soviet Union was almost a reality in Donbas, and its dynamic and diverse population embraced the Soviet myth of a supranational community (Soviet Census Reference Census1989; Geller Reference Geller1988). By internalizing the oppression of the Soviet government (Freire Reference Freire2005), the people of Donbas seem to become the showcase of the triumph of Soviet colonisation.

Despite the Soviet leadership’s attempt to create a homogeneous “Homo Sovieticus,” such experiments had unexpected side effects on the population. Locals valued the people who originated from the region and viewed this fact as more important than being Russian, Ukrainian, or any other (Lieven Reference Lieven1999). In Donbas, identity has broken up its traditional ties to ethnicity and connection to a particular state and evolved into local and economic factors. These factors are derived from complex networks where people’s sense of self and belonging is shaped by their economic roles and identification with professional communities. This laid the foundation for the third element of Donbas’ identity “being native” to the land and the working community. “Being native” also served the myth of superiority and exceptional self-sacrifice of the Donbas people for the prosperity of the USSR which became another key marker of Donbas’ identity (Zimmer Reference Zimmer2007).

The collapse of heavy industry in the late 1980s, coupled with the Soviet Union’s fall and crises in independent Ukraine, created an unfavourable socio-cultural landscape in Modern Donbas. The region where most of its population consisted of second and third-generation migrants (Momryk Reference Momryk2011) disconnected from their cultural roots, continued its drift within the imperial discourse.

A short spike of interest in Ukrainian state-building and cooperation with the People’s Movement of Ukraine during the miners’ strikes in 1989-90 was soon over. The main reason for this disenchantment was that the primary demand of these strikes was to preserve and improve the quality of life, salaries, and working conditions of miners, rather than advocating for the independence of Ukraine (Kapiani Reference Kapiani2011).

From the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty to the outbreak of the war in 2014 and until now Donbas remains in an epicentre of heated discussions within Ukrainian historical and political communities (Tolz Reference Tolz1998; Bevz Reference Bevz2015; Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020). Over the last two decades, Ukraine has tried to formulate a comprehensive unified strategy for national identity, which would overbridge local cultural and historical differences, and simultaneously address its colonial past in the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Soviet Empires. After centuries of oppression and division, the need for a common national identity to foster a sense of belonging and unity within the territory of modern Ukraine (Williams and Smith Reference Williams and Smith1983, 504-505) was crucial for securing the future of the country. Nevertheless, this has proven to be a considerable challenge in the East of Ukraine, and especially in Donbas.

In the state of crisis, when the Soviet symbols collapsed and the identity vacuum appeared with the lack of a unifying ideology (Armstrong Reference Armstrong1963), the key elements that once formed the identity of Donbas also contributed to its marginalization, creating a strong opposition between “us” (people of Donbas) versus “them” (Ukraine, Ukrainian government, and the new order). This became a major roadblock on the way to building a new pro-Ukrainian identity in the region (Matveeva Reference Matveeva2017). In a short time, such a “marginal effect” of Donbas (Vermenych Reference Vermenych2018, 32) contributed to their identity being rebuilt around a nostalgic memory of Soviet times (Kuzio Reference Kuzio2017). A highly russified population trapped in the past glory of the region’s industrial achievement (Zimmer Reference Zimmer2007, 112), became less engaged with the evolving state and more perceptive towards Russian propaganda that leveraged the concepts of “eternal brotherhood” and “one people” (Kolstø Reference Kolstø2023, 2).

The subsequent chapter delves into the mechanisms through which Russia reasserted its political and ideological dominance over Donbas.

Home Alone, or How the Lack of a Unifying Strategy in Ukraine Paved the Way to the Re-establishment of Russian Colonial Rule in Donbas

The first decades of independence, with their limited financial and skilled resources to navigate the state’s economy, corruption, oligarchs, and lack of the consequent governmental tradition have led to political and economic instability in Ukraine. The declaration of Ukraine’s independence in 1991 led to the decline of colonial rule and marked a significant shift from Soviet myth (Magosci Reference Magosci2010) to nation-oriented self-discovering narratives in Ukrainian public discourse and everyday life. The historical figures that were either appropriated or banned during the Soviet times have become the new pillars of national identity (Kuzio Reference Kuzio2019, 302). Concurrently, the dynamic interplay between the revived Ukrainian and instilled Russian identities remained a shaping element of the country’s development trajectory. The census of 2001 showed that Ukrainian ethnicity and identity sustained statistical superiority despite the numerous russification attempts in the past two centuries (Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 571). The majority of Ukrainians explicitly identified themselves with an independent pro-European state (Kotihorenko Reference Kotihorenko2008). In this context, the continuous decline of Donbas and its historical orientation towards Moscow held profound significance for Russia. The situation in the Donbas region, both in terms of reviving its Ukrainian identity and the question of state sovereignty, remained one of the most sensitive, as the issue of mixed identity with the strong regional attachment among residents became even stronger in times of turbulence. Its fluidity and looseness, derived from the terror and oppression of the past, became a serious challenge for all nationally oriented programs over the years of Ukraine’s independence. The introduction of the Ukrainian language and the gradual process of decommunization as a step towards Ukrainization in schools and official institutions were perceived partly as controversial, and partly indifferent, as the Russian language continued to be the main language of communication in Donbas’ habitus (Ukrainian Census 2001).

While Ukraine was seeking (not always successfully) a way to reconnect with its national past and leaned towards the European future (Ilnytzkyj Reference Ilnytzkyj2003), Russia, already a former colonial power, grappled with a series of ideological crises. Russians struggled to build a new cohesive identity that was previously defined through opposition to the Ukrainian and Western ones (Tolz Reference Tolz1998; Kolstø Reference Kolstø2023, 10). The revival of Russian nationalist discourse, inspired by the works of Ilyin and Dugin, rebirthed the imperative of dominance and the need for revanche and re-establishing the sphere of Russian interest stretched all over the post-soviet space, but foremost over Ukraine (Shekhovtsov Reference Shekhovtsov2018). Donbas, with its Soviet-colonial identity, stood as a potential starting point for the reabsorption of this former colony.

People in Donbas were distant from the Ukrainian nation-building and continued to perceive themselves, in their hearts and minds, as ordinary Soviet citizens (Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 537) originating from a territory crucial for the empire. The new political, economic, and cultural freedoms had little practical value and felt unfamiliar and demeaning to people who used to sell them for their prosperity and respect (Abibok Reference Abibok2022). The harsh economic state of Ukraine cannot guarantee a sharp vision of the future that the metropolis used to give by default (Sanborn Reference Sanborn2014, 229-231).

Many cities in Donbas are characterized by a single dominant industry, and its decline inevitably led to a deterioration of the social and demographic situation, as numerous enterprises faced bankruptcy and closure, initiating the delayed process of deindustrialization in the region (Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 523). A significant outflow of the population from the cities of Donbas during the first two decades of Ukraine’s independence resulted in profound challenges in both: the industrial and socio-humanitarian spheres, which would later become one of the central arguments for the war in the East of Ukraine in 2014 (Prybitkova Reference Prybitkova2011, 107). Multi-vector policyFootnote ⁸ during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency in relations with Europe and Russia did not contribute to economic stability and the construction of a unified nation (Vitriak Reference Vitriak2019).

A considerable number of Donbas residents ended up looking for a job in Russian cities, especially in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. In these circumstances, the perception of Russia was primarily shaped through the lens of these two cities, which embodied wealth, prosperity, advancement, and opportunities (Zabolotskiy Reference Zabolotskiy2000). The choice to go to Russia seemed to be predefined and natural, as Russia continuously invested in maintaining the status of a metropolis in the eyes of the former Soviet citizens.

Estranged from their own people and the state, residents of Donbas continued to navigate the ideological framework of the colony. Rarely did individuals from Donbas seek employment in other regions of Ukraine, influenced by the internalized negative stereotypes and biases about fellow Ukrainians perpetuated by the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, in return, the negative stereotypes about Donbasovtsi (people from Donbas) have begun to form in the other parts of Ukraine.

The introduction of satellite television brought Russian music and TV channels to almost every family in Donbas making “older brotherFootnote ⁹” even closer. Captivating laid-back Russian-speaking television had all sorts of programs and shows tailored for post-Soviet citizens, featuring its chauvinistic and easily accessible humour, which became an absolute favourite compared to Ukrainian bi-lingual television (Kralyk Reference Kralyk2016). Aside from football, any other cultural pastime in Donbas played a secondary role for the residents and state. Despite the numerous theatres and operas, museums and music halls; music, and cultural life continued to be imported from Russia and were perceived as more valuable and interesting, but also as something more common. Ukrainian music and arts were certainly present but existed in parallel and lacked equal value compared to Russian.

The economic factor continued to be the essence of Donbas and one of the main aspects of understanding the dynamics of the war in the East (Saradzhyan Reference Saradzhyan2022). The export-oriented extracting economy has also been a key element, transitioned by default from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union and continued, since Ukraine’s independence, imprinting a colonial economy, a trend, inherited from the region’s past (Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 523).

The industrial landscape of Donbas was originally structured to export products and raw materials within the former Soviet Union, particularly to Russia. This economic arrangement led to a significant portion of foreign investments flowing exclusively from Russian capital (Kotihorenko Reference Kotihorenko2008). Despite the gradual decline of Donbas’s industries and the reduced need for such extensive operations, Ukraine struggled to maintain the sector and effectively communicate the economic realities to the local population. Furthermore, the region’s economic security remained closely tied to Russia, as many key industries, such as machine-building and coal mining, were heavily reliant on Russian trade. This dependency played a crucial role in fostering a “pro-Russian” orientation in the region, as residents viewed maintaining these economic ties as essential to their livelihoods (Zhukov Reference Zhukov2015, 4-5). Thus, the working class in Donbas continued to picture itself as the “breadwinner” and fostered the attitude that Ukraine did not appreciate their contributions and efforts. In such circumstances, Russia could easily secure the region within “the sphere of its national interests”.

The economic significance of Donbas (real and imagined) evolved as a decisive political force shaping the country’s political power landscape. The local electorate represented a significant portion of the nationwide electoral landscape and soon became the stronghold of the Party of RegionsFootnote ¹⁰, pushing forward the so-called issue of protecting the rights of Russians and Russian speakers.

The “Orange Revolution” of 2003-2004 became the first major trigger for Russian propaganda in Donbas (Kolstø Reference Kolstø2023, 2) which saw a national awakening in Ukraine as a threat to its own nationalist and imperial intentions (Kuzio Reference Kuzio2019, 303). The rise of the Ukrainian nation and idea would cripple the Russian nationalistic ideas of dominancy embodied in a formula of “two branches of a single people” (Kholmogorov Reference Kholmogorov2006) and would eventually raise the question of other nations, which are waiting for the chance, within the large body of modern Russia. Instead, in Russia’s view as presented by notorious Russian propagandist Yegor Kholmogorov, the people of Ukraine should accept that the Ukrainian self was artificially constructed to diminish Russia and they should assist in reviving and protecting the “Great Russia” (2006, 12).

Viktor Yanukovych, a leader of the Russia-backed “Party of Regions”, a former criminal, and oligarch who originated from Donbas intended to become the president of Ukraine in 2003. Through a manipulated election his presidency was supposed to speed up reconnection with Russia. The concept of “two UkrainesFootnote ¹¹”– a political “know-how” of the Party of Region led by Yanukovych, was aggressively propagated among Donbas voters and garnered substantial support from the regional community (Riabchuk Reference Riabchuk2001; Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 547). This concept was framed in a way suggesting that it was not Donbas in need of integration into the broader Ukrainian project; instead, it pointed out the significance of Donbas, and that it should rather integrate the whole of Ukraine into itself (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015, 24-25).

The conflict between “Two Ukraines” was nothing other than the contested duality of Donbas’ identity skilfully manipulated against the rest of Ukraine. The election campaign strategically focused on the electorate of Eastern Ukraine leveraging nostalgic sentiments toward the Soviet Union, reviving fears of Bandera (leader of the organization of Ukrainian nationalists) and a ban on the Russian language (Matveeva Reference Matveeva2017, 414; Giuliano Reference Giuliano2018; Malko 2019).

Numerous falsifications were disseminated through regional and Russian mass media, including a map of Ukraine, which categorized Ukrainians into three types and depicted Ukrainians from the East as racially inferior (Semenova Reference Semenova2023). Viktor Yushchenko, Yanukovych’s main opponent, and the leader of the pro-European vector of Ukraine’s development was portrayed as the leader of the “orange plague”, “orange russophobe”, “American spy”, “radical nationalist” and “colonist” (We are Ukraine 2023). It was physically dangerous to go out with any orange element of the outfit in Donbas at that time since the degree of tension and aggression in society was so high.

Despite the triumph of the Orange Revolution, Ukraine became polarized within the East/West dichotomy (Shevel Reference Shevel, Bernhard and Kubik2018), so the “pro-Russian” potential of the East of Ukraine, especially Donbas, was revealed (Sich Reference Sich2021). The inherent ethnocultural differences in various regions were transformed into weapons of political power and the political discourse adopted the narratives of disengagement. All sorts of political activities have become civilizational (Kulchitskiy and Yakubova Reference Kulchitskiy and Yakubova2020, 585). The provoked conflict between “Two Ukraines” became not only the battle of highly politicized national visions (Ukrainian and Russian) but also a conflict between two identities: one focused on the Ukrainian nation and its place in a globalized world; and the other colonial in its essence.

The period between MaidansFootnote ¹² (2004-2013) highlighted the absence of national discourse in shaping the identity of Donbas residents, which was worsened by the lack of historical figures and monuments that were not tied to the Soviet past in the minds of the region’s population (Yakubova Reference Yakubova2015). Reluctance to seek a Ukrainian and pro-European orientation of the development, and finally suspicion towards the Ukrainian language, especially among the older generation, has given rise to revanchist sentiments in the region.

The use of the Ukrainian language, or in fact the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine, continued to be another source of tension. The protection of the Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine was the alleged reason for the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 (Matveeva Reference Matveeva2017; TASS 2021), but this narrative was first employed for the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas (The Washington Post Reference Lally and Eglund2014; Kuzio Reference Kuzio2019). The Russian-speaking younger population had no issue with using the Ukrainian language in social and administrative contexts, and as well didn’t feel they would be discriminated against for speaking Russian (Razumkov Centre Reference Centre2019, 203). However, Russian propaganda did a lot to make it viable and even absurd stating that the Ukrainian government wanted to prevent people from even thinking in Russian (Kabanen Reference Juhani2021, 27). Special nationalist battalions from the West of Ukraine were alleged to be sent to eliminate Russian speakers so there was a severe fear among the older generation relying on the Russian language as the core of identity (Kuzio Reference Kuzio2015, 439; Giuliano Reference Giuliano2018, 12)

The threat that was supposedly coming from the Ukrainian state was all time amplified in Russian media widely broadcasted in Donbas. To anchor the region within the imperial sphere of influence, Russia employed a central marker of Donbas identity portraying the region as “the breadwinner” and “the only working population of the country” (Giuliano Reference Giuliano2018) while the rest of Ukraine, for the money sent from “America” protests on Maidan (Yermolayeva and Churanova Reference Yermolayeva and Churanova2023).

Recognizing that Soviet colonization replaced the core of self-identification of Donbas residents with a surrogate working-class identity rooted in exceptionalism and anti-elite sentiments, Russia exploited it to re-subjugate Donbas and re-establish its own colonial rule over the region. It did not take much, because, in contrast, development within the paradigm of the Ukrainian state would mean a sequence of challenging reforms and the necessity to acknowledge the defeat of this exceptionalism as a self-definition of the region. The prolonged life of this exceptionalism sustained on the affirmations of the revival of past prosperity united under the watchful eye and the strong hand (Hrabovskiy Reference Hrabovskiy2013). In contrast, Ukraine was labelled in Russian media as an “artificially constructed”, “Puppet of the West” or “failed state” that has no future (Matveeva Reference Matveeva2017; Kuzio Reference Kuzio2019).

Russia spotted and seeded, in the minds of many Donbas residents, with the help of media and politicians, the idea that Ukraine failed to appreciate the economic contributions of Donbas (Giuliano Reference Giuliano2018, 16), ignoring the reality that most mines and industrial enterprises have been heavily subsidised (Starychenko and Fokina Reference Starychenko and Fokina2014). In the next chapter, we will explore how Russia benefited from establishing its neo-colonial rule over Donbas and examine its impact on the identity of the people residing in the occupied territories.

The Grey Zone’s Identity: Living in Donbas Under Occupation

The political consequences of the Revolution of DignityFootnote ¹³ in 2013-2014, Yanukovych’s escape, and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea dramatically increased social friction in Ukraine. In March 2014, the anti-Maidan movement which supported the pro-Russian trajectory in Ukraine’s development, sparked an anti-government uprising throughout the East of Ukraine, with an epicentre in the Donbas region (Grytsenko Reference Grytsenko2014).

Backed by Russian “curators” like Igor GirkinFootnote ¹⁴, separatists seized municipal government buildings in various cities including administrative centres and proclaimed so-called “independent states” of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in April 2014. The establishment of the “republics” marked a critical phase in Russia’s comprehensive strategy of political, economic, cultural, and military control, reflecting its broader neo-colonial ambitions. Operating under the guise of local autonomy these quasi-states are fully controlled by Moscow, ensuring that Russian interests prevail. This control strengthens Russia’s political dominance and effectively constitutes a de facto occupation. As a result, many Donbas residents with pro-Ukrainian, or even pro-local positions faced unprecedented levels of violence from Russia’s controlled separatists (UN 2020; Freedom House 2017).

In the years following 2014, numerous ceasefires and the signing of the Minsk Accords the frontline eventually stabilized making the protracted conflict in the Donbas even more complex. The “status quo”, passportisation, and Russia’s control over the “republics” created a self-reinforcing cycle of polarization. Donbas residents legitimized separatist rule due to perceived threats from Ukraine, setting a dangerous precedent that questioned Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty (Lennon and Adams Reference Lennon and Adams2019, 661).

By establishing its neo-colonial rule over Donbas Russia highly benefited from this stance. Unlike other colonial powers worldwide, it extracted not just raw materials, but the ideological source of power, to support its imperial agenda (Feinburg et al. Reference Feinburg, Harvey, Pushel and Sternfels2024, 5) both domestically and internationally.

Despite the anticipated “independence” the occupied territories of Donbas faced a drastic economic crisis, which led to the closure of most of the coal mines and the demolition of heavy industry (Skhidna pravozakhysna hrupa 2022). The obvious self-inconsistency of the occupied territories increased the levels of frustration, which was effectively exploited by Russia. Mirroring classic colonial exploitation patterns, Russia supplies Donbas with essential goods, financial aid, and logistical support, creating an economic dependency that binds the local economies to the Kremlin. This dependency limits the monetary sovereignty of Donbas and integrates it more closely with the Russian economy, ensuring that any economic activity benefits Russia first and foremost. Locals’ disillusionment with reality was exploited to foster an extreme identity centred around blaming Ukraine for the inefficiencies of the republics.

Under the pretext of an “endangered fatherland”, Ukrainian media sources were banned in “the republics” and strict censorship was enforced to control information and foster hostility among the local population. In contrast, the broadcasting of Russian and separatist-owned media was heavily promoted to impose Russian culture, language, and identity (Trebor Reference Trebor2014). These cultural policies were designed to assimilate the local population into Russian cultural norms, weakening the Ukrainian national identity and making the idea of reintegration with Ukraine less appealing. The severe fire of propaganda paved the way for poorly fabricated news, including viral fakes like the “crucified boy of Sloviansk” and the “Ukrainian government promised a piece of land and two slaves to every Ukrainian soldier fighting in Donbas” (StopFake 2014). The simple lie spread by Russian puppet regimes may appear ridiculous to believe; however, the emotional appeal embedded within these narratives, combined with constant pressure, and lack of critical thinking has successfully seeded a deep mistrust, support for separatist regimes and negative attitude towards Ukraine.

Over the past 10 years, Russia through its local representatives in the “republics” invested heavily in misinformation among pensioners and the working-age population, and more importantly, they sought to raise a new generation of loyal citizens (Abibok Reference Abibok2018, 5). Through educational indoctrination built around the historical ties with Russia and the anti-Ukrainian and anti-West sentiments, “republics” aimed to cultivate a distinct identity of Donbas (Lennon and Adams Reference Lennon and Adams2019; Gerstein Reference Gerstein2020) that would internally separate a new generation from the rest of Ukraine, and eternally bind them to the “Russkii mir” (Russian world) (Barbieri Reference Barbieri2023, 5-6). Various paramilitary clubs and local branches of Yunarmia (Young army) are actively training children and teenagers, not only to secure the division between Donbas and Ukraine in the minds of the youngsters raised in the “republics”, but also to secure preparedness to sacrifice their lives defending “DPR” and “LPR”, but more importantly Russia.

Just a couple of days before launching a full-scale invasion into Ukraine, Russia formally recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed republics, and the separatist governments began mobilization of the entire military-age population of men without any exceptions. Soon, the mobilisation in the occupied territories turned into the kidnapping of men on the streets (Skhidna pravozakhysna hrupa 2023) who were later sent to the frontline without any food, ammunition, and training as “cannon fodder”. Those who were captured alive on the battlefield by the Ukrainian Armed Forces often were not able to explain what they were fighting for and got nostalgic about the times when “we peacefully lived in Ukraine” (Zolkin Reference Zolkin2022, 9:34). Meanwhile, the others are stacked in trenches and forced to fight against their countrymen by Russian anti-retreat units until the end.