Siamak Tundra Naficy writes:

In On the Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin wrestled with the question of why people would ever be willing to risk themselves for strangers. Only in 1871, in The Descent of Man, did Darwin find an answer: Societies that include brave people in their population would have an advantage when faced with hopeless causes — situations in which the brave act without regard for personal survival in the event of success. In other words, particularly in existential conflicts when losses against a competing group could mean genetic or cultural extinction, moral commitments to group loyalty, sacrifice, and heroism are most consequential.

In his shifting justifications for war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has rejected Ukraine’s right to nationhood, depicting Ukrainian national identity as a fiction resulting from errors made by his predecessors in the Kremlin, going back to Vladimir Lenin. This is not a new argument for Putin: During a NATO summit in Romania in April 2008, Putin argued, “Ukraine is not even a state. What is Ukraine? A part of its territory is [in] Eastern Europe, but a[nother] part, a considerable one, was a gift from us!” Nor are these views rare among Russian elites. In April of 2016, Russia’s then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev declared that there was “no state” in Ukraine. In February, Vladislav Surkov, who served as an advisor to Putin for more than 20 years before falling from favor in 2020, argued

There is no Ukraine. There is Ukrainianism: a specific mental disorder…. A muddle instead of a state. There is borscht, Bandera, bandura. But there is no nation. There is a pamphlet called “Samostiyna Ukraine” [Independent or Sovereign Ukraine], but there is no Ukraine.

In a long polemic he published last year, Putin referred to Russians and Ukrainians as “one people,” arguing that it is the West that attempts to enforce a “change of identity” and wrest Ukraine away from its rightful place in Russia’s orbit.

With its invasion, Moscow put this view to the test. And it has failed in the crucible of war. Oxana Shevel suggests that one of Putin’s biggest mistakes has been his belief that Russian soldiers would be welcomed as liberators, and that the Zelensky government would quickly fall, with a pro-Russian quasi-independent Ukraine following suit. [Continue reading…]