Lessons of war for the formation of the strategy of Ukrainian eastern policy: philosophical considerations

Abstract

The article analyzes the issues in political philosophy related to the attitude towards russians and everything russian in the context of a new phase of russian aggression against Ukraine. This attitude is polarized around two extremes – the total denial, deleting and canceling of everything associated with russia and the USSR, on the one hand, and the distinction and justification of russian culture or “ordinary people”, on the other. According to the classical polarization effect and the confirmation bias, social attitudes are polarized, centrist moderate at­titudes are deleted, and extreme attitudes prevail, which is detrimental to social stability and dialogue. If in Ukraine prevails the principle of total canceling of a russian, then outside Ukraine, especially in countries far from the war, the wrong approach of so-called prudence and moderation leads to the false contraposi­tion of the “Ukrainian” radical attitude of canceling and russian propaganda as two equal approaches, which is wrong from factual and logical side. Instead, the “moderate” position of distinction ignores some factual, historical, and political issues that relate to the genesis of russia’s ideology of war, the doctrine of “russian World.” These discussions are proof that Ukraine needs to develop a new clear strategy for russia and a russian, based on the rejection of the black-and-white approach, the provincial postcolonial complex, the attitude to russia not as “our one” but as “other one”, while Ukraine will considered as a center of thought and action, treating russia as a completely external factor. This strategy requires a dif­ferentiated approach to different strata of russian society, a critical attitude to russian civil religion, and must be based on the values of humanity and freedom, which in turn should be the leading narrative of russia’s transformation.