The coexistence of nationalism, Westernization, Russification, and Russophobia: facets of parallelization in the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Parallelization theory complements earlier concepts in cultural and political history by focusing on the coexistence of seemingly contradictory patterns in various localities, such as segregation/integration of migrants in Europe and the USA, polarization/hybridization in Korea and Ukraine, and secularization/the resurgence of religions in countries like Malaysia and Sweden. The current article examines the parallel presence of Ukrainian nationalism/Westernization and Russification/Russophobia before and in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The argument is bolstered by both Russian, Ukrainian, and Western media sources, showing how and why these seemingly conflicting tendencies coexist.


Introduction
Parallelization theory (Boman 2021a) was developed to underline the complexity with regard to various cultural, political, social, psychological, and economic phenomena often studied in various disciplinary and interdisciplinary orbits like sociology, cultural psychology, and political science.Parallelization means, in brevity, that at least two seemingly paradoxical phenomena coexist, such as societies experiencing both integration and segregation of migrants, and secularization tendencies which occur in tandem with a resurgence of various religious manifestations (i.e., New Age and Islam in European countries) (Boman 2021a).The concept partly builds on Jan Nederveen Pieterse's works on globalization (e.g., Pieterse 1994Pieterse , 1996Pieterse , 2015) ) which suggest that cultural globalization in the broader sense hinges on three core trajectories: homogenization (i.e., Westernization), polarization (i.e., verbal and physical conflicts), and hybridization (i.e., cultural blending) (Pieterse 1996), and the notion that hybridization has been the focal course in the development of cultural history across many locations of the world (Pieterse 1994(Pieterse , 2015)).Boman (2021a) highlights various instances in which polarization, hybridization, and homogenization seem to coincide and intersect as another example of parallelization.The Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has affected in particular the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine 2014 onward, constitutes a pertinent example, as there have been instances of both Russification (i.e., Russian imperialism) and polarization in relation to the Russia-backed separatist quasi-states, the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic which currently control more than half of the land of the Donets Basin (i.e., Donbas) region (e.g., Kyiv Independent 2022) and about a third prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022 (e.g., Gentile 2015).
The current article aims to understand the Russia-Ukraine conflict through the prism of parallelization.Apart from earlier scholarship, media articles from Ukraine (e.g., Kyiv Independent), Russia (e.g., TASS), the West (e.g., CNN, The Guardian), and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic will support the argument.The specific focus is on the parallel trajectories of Ukrainian nationalism/Westernization and Russification/Russophobia before and in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The article supplements the emerging political-oriented literature on the Ukraine-Russia conflict (e.g., Boubaker et al. 2022;Feklyunina 2016;Gehring 2022;Götz 2016;Götz and Staun 2022;Kasianenko 2019;Mearsheimer 2014;Mälksoo 2022) and secondarily the broader scholarly discussions on the interplays, conflicts, and negotiations between liberalism and nationalism in various national, regional, and global contexts (e.g., Ferrer and Kühn 2019;Fleury 2022;Layne 2017;Mearsheimer 2018;Sabatovych 2017;Walt 2018).It proceeds with a description of the theoretical framing of parallelization in relation to political and cultural issues.Then follows a historical outlook of Ukraine's Russian and Western roots that relate to some of the present geopolitical and cultural conditions.In the next section, the co-presence of Ukrainian nationalism and Westernization is examined.Then follows a section which treats the parallelization of Russification and Russophobia, particularly in territories that have been occupied by pro-Russian separatists or the Russian military since either 2014 or 2022.A conclusive discussion summarizes the article.

Parallelization in relation to political and cultural issues in national contexts
Parallelization theory (Boman 2021a), when applied to cultural, political, and social analysis, rests on the assumption that societies often are too complex for a single pattern to be predominant.Moreover, the scholarly focus on a single chief trajectory (e.g., secularization) leads to simplistic analyses, confirmation bias (i.e., the inability to falsify one's own claims), and a failure to understand complex interdependent processes (e.g., the nexus between migration, integration, and segregation) (Boman 2021a).Hence, the author agrees with Kalyvas (2003) who stresses that more complex and dynamic analyses of conflicts are required.
Parallelization in relation to political, cultural, and social issues such as regular wars and civil wars does also constitute a crucial dynamism, especially as regards the co-presence of hybridization and polarization in various national contexts.
After World War II and the end of Japanese annexation, the partition into a North Korea and a South Korea, and the consecutive bloody Korean war in 1950-1953, the primary polarizing force has been that between the two neighboring states with vastly different ideological and political-economic frameworks, despite a shared cultural-historical past.From a South Korean point of view, North Korea constitutes the main external threat (Boman 2021b).Even in the last years, tensions have risen due to, for example, North Korea's multiple tests of nuclear missiles.However, after almost 80 years of continuous armistice and very little bloodshed in between, the capitalist-oriented South Korea focuses more on domestic issues such as socioeconomic inequality, political incompetence, or corruption, than the threats from the troublesome neighbor in the north (Boman 2021b;Lie 2018).In the past, America's strong influence on the newly formed Republic of Korea was not always deemed positive, whether in the political or cultural sphere.Over time, however, the tacit acceptance of American culture and customs has been irrefutable (Lie 2014).Currently, Korean culture and politics are hybridized, which implies that they are merged with American-Western components such as English loan words, capitalism, lifestyles, and pop music (Boman 2021b).The acceptance of foreign influences is likelier to occur if they have a broad appeal and is not deemed too different from the current constitution of the We (Feklyunina 2016;Kwak 2010).Hence, Westernized hybridization is often more common among younger people who have already been accustomed to such ideas (Yoon 2017).Thus, the political, cultural, and social landscape of the country is one characterized by both hybridization and polarization (Boman 2021b).
The war-town situation in Ukraine is quite different in many regards.Nonetheless, Ukraine's political and cultural development over the last decade has been affected by both polarizing forces and cultural imposition, as in relation to Korea's past.As will be highlighted in later sections, a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian elements has occurred quite naturally in several parts of the country.In contemporary contexts, many in Ukraine's southeast, for example, speak Surzhyk, a mix of various sociolects of the Russian and Ukrainian languages (Bilaniuk 2004).Bilingualism (i.e., the use of both Ukrainian and Russian) is widespread particularly in the country's east and southeast (Gentile 2015).In the annexed parts of Ukraine, like Donbas, there is a physical polarization as the two armies (i.e., Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian separatist armed forces) have shelled each other for almost 8 years, prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022.But more subtle polarizing trajectories could also be linked to the imposition of Russian rule in certain parts of the Donbas.Currently, only the Russian language is used officially in the occupied territories (e.g., Donetsk News Agency 2022; Lugansk Media Centre 2022), leaving little room for Ukrainian elements at the social, cultural, and political level.In other parts of Ukraine, such as Kyiv and Lviv, a more pro-European and pro-Western tendency seems to coexist and merge with Ukrainian nationalism (Gentile 2022;Götz and Staun 2022).Such developments, which tap into both Russification and Russophobia, as well as nationalism and Westernization (e.g., Feklyunina 2016), require further scrutiny.Kalyvas (2003) underlines the complexity and ambiguity of civil wars, which typically have both top-down and bottom-up dimensions.While the Ukraine war, 2014 onward, is not a civil per se, it nevertheless shares some of its features.For example, the construction of the two Donbas republics in 2014 constitutes an interaction between state-centered (i.e., top-down) and local initiatives (i.e., bottom-up).The current acting head of the Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, was a local who was involved in both business and politics prior to becoming a leader of the Russia-backed Donetsk branch (Mirror Weekly 2014).Hence, a person from the mass became part of a new regionally oriented pro-Russian elite that was then seen as a threat to the Kiev regime.Pushilin may have had certain career incentives to become aligned with Moscow, much more palpably so in 2022, but his decisions also reflected personal and political preferences.
On the other side of the political spectrum, the Ukrainian Azov battalion was not primarily an extension of a radical nationalist government in Kiev, but at least partly a private initiative of certain groups and individuals with particular views and proclivities (Umland 2019).While the overall causes of the Ukraine war are largely related to decision-making among elites, such as the geopolitical interplay between Ukraine, Russia, EU, NATO, and the USA (Mearsheimer 2014), there is still a room for personal and local influences.For example, the parallel process of intensified Russification in some parts of Russia's newly annexed regions is a consequence of the ethnic makeup, linguistic structures, and political preferences that are regionally constituted (Gentile 2015(Gentile , 2020;;Mearsheimer 2014;Tsygankov 2015;Mykhnenko 2020).The same goes for the pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian sentiments in the territories that are under Ukrainian control, where the political and linguistic preferences are very different (Boman 2023; Kyiv International Institute of Sociology 2022).Obviously, the dynamics of the ongoing war, especially in 2022 onward, also intensifies the friend-foe distinctions that are typical for Carl Schmitt's outlook on warfare (Kalyvas 2003;Schmitt 2009).Overall, the war in Ukraine, as will be further emphasized, is intricate due to the several layers of involved stakeholders (e.g., elite decisions in several countries, soldiers, and civilians from different regions of Ukraine) and the dynamics of the war (e.g., Russia has annexed certain parts of the Ukrainian territory).While other theoretical lenses are, indeed, possible to apply to this conflict, parallelization theory might be particularly useful for highlighting the opposing or interdependent tendencies in the political realm (i.e., liberalism/nationalism, Russification/Russophobia).It is, however, important to underline that it is not classical liberalism that is being highlighted in this respect, which often went hand in hand with nationalism in many historical contexts, but a particular form of West-oriented internationalist liberalism (e.g., Ikenberry 2018;Mearsheimer 2014Mearsheimer , 2018).

Ukraine's Russian and western past and present
The historical relations between Russia and Ukraine are complicated and contentious (Kuzio 2002;Subtelny 1988;Wilson 2009), especially after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, the formation of two Russia-backed quasi-republics in the Donbas region in the same year (Mykhnenko 2020), and even more so after the Russian invasion of Ukraine at dawn of February 24, 2022.Both Ukrainian nationalists (e.g., The Kyiv Independent 2022), pro-Russian separatists (e.g., Lugansk Media Centre 2022), and Russian imperialists (e.g., Tass 2022) partake in these discursive struggles on the meaning of the past and present in relation to the Ukrainian context.Nevertheless, it is a fact that both countries are predominantly oriented toward Orthodox Christendom (Likachev and Rzhevsky 2012;Mudrov 2019), both Russian and Ukrainian are East Slavic languages with considerable lexical and grammatical overlap (Bernsand 2001;Bilaniuk 2004;Worth and Flier 2012), and both are directly and indirectly influenced by the West (e.g., Westphalen 2012).
For example, the Russian monarch Peter the Great (1672-1725) was inspired by Western nations like France, England, the Netherlands, and Sweden and thus Westernization took place in various aspects of the political, social, military and cultural realms (Westphalen 2012).This tendency continued during the reign of the Russian empire  when two major industrial cities, Donetsk and Luhansk, were formed by two British businessman, Charles Gascoigne (Luhansk, 1738(Luhansk, -1806) ) and John Hughes (Donetsk, 1814-1889).Albeit there had been both Russian and Cossack settlements in these regions, even the Russian name of Donetsk, Yuzovka (Russian: Юзoвкa), is associated with the Hughes surname.Hence, there were palpable Western influences in the Donbas region long before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and a fruitful hybridization of Russian, Ukrainian, and Western elements (Subtelny 1988, pp. 267-268).More recent examples include the UEFA Euro 2012 in which Poland and Ukraine jointly hosted the European championship of football (Müller and Pickles 2015).The Donbass arena in Donetsk had a capacity of more than 50 000 people, many of whom were foreign visitors.Moreover, the Taras Shevchenko National University of Luhansk used to provide courses in English for many of its students.Indeed, the Donbas region seemed more cosmopolitan and "EU-oriented" than ever prior to the Euromaidan in 2013 and the Ukraine war in early 2014 (Feklyunina 2016).Younger people in particular tend to consider themselves Ukrainians, albeit typically Russian-speaking, EU-oriented, and relatively liberal and progressive compared to their older counterparts (Gentile 2015(Gentile , 2020)).Hence, there were substantial fractions of the country's eastern populations that supported ideas which resonate with those of the Euromaidan in 2013 (Feklyunina 2016;Gentile 2015;Sabatovych 2017).
Furthermore, as Mearsheimer (2018, p. 225) correctly has emphasized, Ukrainians alongside other nations and people of the Soviet Union  strove for a sovereign status.Mikhail Gorbachev's regime could not stop the nationalist forces that had been unleashed within the Soviet Union.After the full independence of Ukraine in 1991, a referendum was held in Donetsk and Luhansk in 1994 which proposed the elevation of the Russian language to that of the same status as Ukrainian.The vote was deemed constitutionally invalid (Flynn 1996), which may have left the older, less educated, and Pro-Russian/Soviet population more resentful.Nonetheless, prior to late 2013, when ominous signs of conflict started to occur, there had been little polarization in the region, as more people seem to have been accustomed to Donbas being a part of a sovereign Ukrainian state (Gentile 2015).However, as Huntington (1996;see also 1991, pp. 299-300) correctly underscored, Ukraine might, from a civilizational point of view, be seen as a "torn country" and thus partially divided between the East (i.e., the Russian federation and the broader Christian Orthodox culture) and the West (e.g., the European Union, NATO) (Huntington 1996).On the other hand, factors such as geographical position, age, and educational attainment do partly determine the geopolitical preferences of the Ukrainian population, rather than language and religion (Gentile 2015(Gentile , 2020)).The years in between 2014 and 2022 have manifested a more western-oriented trajectory of Ukraine (Götz and Staun 2022).These propensities may have pivotal implications for the region's political and ideological structures, and particularly with regard to the causes and consequences of Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.Mearsheimer (2018) stresses that in the past and present a trichotomy of ideological options has manifested itself for most countries throughout the world: liberal democracy (i.e., Westernization), nationalism, or somewhat earlier, Communism.Despite its technocratic and federal features, the European Union is associated with liberal democracy and, indeed, Westernization (Mearsheimer 2018;Sabatovych 2017).These fuzzy but nonetheless discernible patterns among Ukrainian citizens have enabled an ideological space for two seemingly conflicting tendencies: the parallel presence of Ukrainian nationalism and liberal-democratic Westernization.If Ukrainian nationalism emphasizes the Ukrainian language, national sovereignty, the Orthodox Church, and to a much lesser extent the Catholic Church (e.g., Kuzio 2002), it means by consequence a de-valorization of both the Russian and Western/European affinities.After all, the Ukrainian language and Orthodox state church are much more similar to Russia's counterparts than most other European countries, as well as even more so the USA.However, such a political and cultural development does also imply a termination of the historical ties to the Russian empire and the Soviet Union (Feklyunina 2016).Indeed, Ukrainian nationalism is incompatible with Russian imperialism (i.e., the annexation of Ukrainian territory).

Ukrainian nationalism and Westernization
The parallel presence of Ukrainian nationalism and liberal Westernization may thus seem puzzling, at least at first glance.According to Mearsheimer (2018), liberal hegemony, which essentially constitutes ideological and cultural homogenization (Boman 2021a), is seen as distinct and incompatible with nationalism.Nonetheless, post-Soviet nations such as Estonia (Boman 2020) and Kazakhstan (Boman 2022) have experienced developmental trajectories that are heavily influenced by both nationalism and liberalism, or at least westernized modernization in the case of Kazakhstan (Donabayev and Park, 2020;Edelbay 2012;Spehr and Kassenova 2012).It seems that nationalism and liberalism are compatible, at least to some degree, in the Ukrainian context.Hence, a strong Ukrainian nationhood (i.e., nationalism) and EU-oriented policies (i.e., liberalism) may seem possible, even strategically fruitful to combine, even if the actual outcome has not been a strong democracy (e.g., Sabatovych 2017).
In the Ukrainian case, there is another aspect to consider, namely the historical ties to the Soviet Union and Nazi occupation and brief collaboration during World War II (e.g., Katchanovski 2010;Yekelchyk 2007, pp. 235-251).On the one hand, large parts of Ukraine were occupied by Nazi soldiers in 1941-1943 before these regions were liberated by Soviet troops in early 1943.Most of Ukraine had been liberated by the Soviet forces at the end of the summer in 1943 (Yekelchyk 2007, pp. 237-240).On the other hand, according to both several Western regimes and many prominent Ukrainian politicians, the Holodomor famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 constitutes a more horrific event in Ukraine's history compared to the Nazi occupation, which was brutal but still less severe compared to Stalinist repression in many respects (Yekelchyk 2007;Zhukova 2022).Nonetheless, most Ukrainians were somehow affected by Germany's Nazi presence, among whom minorities and older people in Ukraine's east (e.g., Kharkov, Luhansk) may hold particularly critical views which resonate more with that of contemporary Russia's current narrative (e.g., Gentile 2015; Katchanovski 2010; Tass 2022).
Both the Donetsk People's Republic's news agency and the Luhansk People's Republic's news agency and the Russian TASS news agency, among others, emphasize the importance of the so-called de-Nazification of Ukraine (e.g., Donetsk News Agency, 2022a).De-Nazification and de-militarization are two of the main goals of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (CNN 2022;Tass 2022).This discourse has historical ties to Ukraine's radical nationalist and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera , but currently the notion that the regime in Kiev consists of neo-Nazis is largely related to Ukraine's infamous Azov battalion, which is named after the Sea of Azov in southeastern Ukraine.Both the West-oriented regime in Kiev and the USA tolerate the racist and neo-Nazi elements and sub-factions within the Azov battalion, as these are nowadays a part of the regular armed forces of Ukraine (Umland 2019).Hence, one could make a case for a coexistence of extremist Ukrainian nationalism and Westernization in contemporary Ukraine, especially 2014 onward.However, from a cultural point of view the narrative seems discordant with real conditions.Nazism was an intrinsically anti-Slavic ideology, and Communism opposed religion.Ukrainian nationalists during World War II were essentially both anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet in their ideological orientation and with regard to Realpolitik (Yekelchyk 2007).President Vladimir Putin's Russia builds on both Russian Orthodoxy and Slavic, possibly pan-Slavic nationalism (Wegren 2015) and is, as such, more similar to the Azov battalion's patriotic proclivities, which stress the Slavic and Orthodox elements of Ukraine's past and present (Umland 2019), than Western liberalism.The main differences between Russian post-Soviet imperialism and Ukrainian radical nationalism lie not in sociocultural preferences about, for example, gay and women's rights, but between conflicting (geo-)political goals.Russian imperialists, disguised as Ukrainian separatists, want chunks of the Ukrainian territory to be a part of Russia as it was in the past, whereas the Ukrainian nationalists do not endorse the development of a particularly westernized society, although that varies somewhat between different regions (Gentile 2015;Mykhnenko 2020), but a strong and nationally sovereign polity.Just as Ukraine's current struggle might be an instrument of the West's goals (i.e., particularly US foreign policy) in order to weaken Russia (e.g., Mearsheimer 2018), the West's support is an instrument of Ukraine's nationalists' goal to separate themselves from Russia (e.g., Feklyunina 2016).
As Umland (2019) rightfully accentuates, Ukraine's ultra-nationalist parties and factions were by no means large in the 2014 elections, with Svoboda (i.e., the All-Ukrainian "Freedom") reaching 4.71% in the parliamentary elections and Pravvy Sektor ("Right sector") a mere 0.8%.In the 2019 parliamentary elections, Svoboda reached 2.15%, thus decreasing the public support to less than half over the course of five years.Overall, the endorsement of radical nationalism had thus decreased, despite millions of people in Donbas not eligible for voting due to the formation of the two "People's republics" where such Ukrainian citizens are unable to participate in the country's national elections.These would have, likely, not voted for the radical nationalist parties that typically are stronger in the western parts of Ukraine (Umland 2019).
It could, however, be the case that Ukraine's ultra-nationalist factions had infiltrated the moderate and progressive democratic parties in Ukraine such as the current president Volodymyr Zelensky's Servant of the people and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko's European Solidarity.Indeed, Poroshenko's political orientation leaned toward financial liberalization, pro-European inclinations, and Ukrainian nationalism (Tsygankov 2015).Mearsheimer (2018) may be correct to point out the unrealistic conception of implementing liberal hegemony on a global scale, as many regional hegemons like China, Russia, Iran, and Brazil are heading in different ideological and geopolitical directions.However, the parallelization of Western homogenization, anti-Russian polarization, and ideological hybridization demonstrates the co-presence of several distinctive political, economic, and cultural trajectories.Hence, liberalism and nationalism are merged in the contemporary Ukrainian context, as they also are in much less conflict-ridden states like, for example, Switzerland (e.g., Bernard 2017).Indeed, compared to the right-wing populist-oriented the Swiss People's Party, European Solidarity and Servant of the People have a more pro-EU profile.
The Azov battalion, later a part of Ukraine's regular military regiment and nowadays less ideologically saturated, has like other similar smaller military units in the country been financed by the Jewish oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky (Umland 2019).President Zelensky has a Jewish family background, a fact that later made Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov apologize to Israel for making far-fetched claims about Jews being Nazi collaborators (Al Jazeera 2022).Despite a significant number of radical right foreign fighters who have joined the Ukraine forces in Donbas (Mac-Kenzie and Kauner 2021), the notion of a "dangerous" far right, even accounting for some neo-Nazi individuals among these units, in Ukraine does not have any real substance (Gentile 2022;Umland 2019).It is an outlier phenomenon, both in regard to the parliamentary and presidential elections and in relation to the Azov movement, and could hardly be "an existential threat" to Russia (e.g., Lenta 2021), one of the world's leading nuclear nations (Renz 2016).At its prime, the Azov group constituted much less than 10% of Ukraine's complete military forces (Umland 2019) and currently much less than 1% (Global Firepower 2022; Wikipedia 2022).One may suggest that the Ukrainian military forces, especially around Donetsk's Sea of Azov region (e.g., Polovyan et al. 2018), constituted a threat to the consolidation of the "People's republic," especially the separatist military units but to lesser extent also civilians who reside there.However, it is quite phantasmagoric to suggest that this would pose a threat to the larger Russian territory.Indeed, the Moscow regime has invested considerable economic, military, and political capital in relation to the "Donbas project" since 2014.For instance, Russia covers between 70 and 82% of the social welfare costs of the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" (Kasianenko 2019).These investments, combined with power and prestige, have paved the way for a prolonged geopolitical conflict, which escalated in February 2022 onward.Before 2022, in the aftermath of the first phases of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, more than 1.5 million Ukrainians had become internally displaced persons (IDPs), while hundreds of thousands had fled overseas (Woroniecka-Krzyzanowska and Palaguta 2017).These numbers have grown about tenfold in 2022 (Burke, Strouboulis, Nzuki, and Yayboke, 2022;UNHCR 2022), including the death tolls among the two main armies as well as civilians (e.g., Business Insider 2022; UCDP 2022).
There is another aspect to consider than EU integration and economic benefits associated with trade: democratic development.As several reports from the Economist's Intelligence Unit show, Ukraine has not been a bulwark of democracy since its independence in 1991.In 2010, Ukraine was categorized as a "flawed democracy" with an overall score of 6.30 (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010; see also O'Brien 2010).This is a normal situation for an emerging economy as democratic development and economic growth, often but not always, are intertwined processes (Heo and Tan 2001;Huntington 1991).The overall score decreased in 2014 to 5.42, thus making Ukraine a "hybrid regime" (i.e., a mix between democratic and authoritarian features) not all that different from authoritarian Russia and Belarus in several respects (i.e., functioning of government) (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2014).For sure, the military conflict created unnormal conditions that may increase corruption and coercion, at least in the short term, but the former pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych, who was removed from his post on February 22 in 2014 (Ambrosio 2017;O'Brien 2010), cannot be blamed for the governmental failures in later years.In 2020, Ukraine was still a "hybrid regime" (5.82) with a highly dysfunctional government (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020; see also Sabatovych 2017).However, the 2019 elections were deemed fair and the country has had a substantial pluralism of political parties (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2020).
The contentious issue surrounding Ukraine's potential NATO membership (e.g., Götz and Staun 2022;Wolff 2015) adds to the polarization discourse in relation to Ukraine and Russia.Rather newly accepted NATO members such as Montenegro and North Macedonia are, like Ukraine, two hybrid regimes (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010Unit, , 2014Unit, , 2020)).Hence, NATO membership does not require democratic development to the same extent as the EU.For example, the hybrid regime Turkey (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010Unit, , 2014Unit, , 2020) is a NATO member since 1952 but has not yet been permitted to join the EU (EU 2022).As of June 2022, Ukraine and Moldova were accepted as candidates eligible to join the EU at a later time (CNBC 2022), making them on par with Turkey in such regards.Even the political debates on NATO membership in Sweden highlighted the almost Manichean divergence between Russia's dictatorship and Ukraine's supposed democracy (e.g., SVT Play 2022).In accordance with Gehring's (2022) analysis, EU members and current or potential NATO members have sided with Ukraine in the conflict-in 2014 and even more so in 2022-making its integration with the West a de facto case.Ukraine's rampant nationalism has, however, not been underscored as a threat but an acceptable response to Russia's aggression (e.g., SVT Play 2022).
In conclusion, the parallelization of increased Ukrainian nationalism and Westernization is related to a specific set of historical and political circumstances that have enabled this development.Specifically, internationalist liberalism is associated with the EU cooperation and the US influence, as well as Ukraine's willingness to partake in beneficial trade agreements (Gehring 2022;Gentile 2015;Mykhnenko 2020).The merging of Ukrainian nationalism and Western liberalism is reminiscent of, for example, Estonia's post-Soviet development (Boman 2020) while also containing specific contextual characteristics that are not shared with other post-Soviet states.Contrary to Mearsheimer's general argument (2018), Western liberalism and capitalism do still offer considerable attraction around the world and are in the Ukrainian context ideologically negotiated with nationalism rather than constituting a polar opposite.Hence, extreme radical nationalism, ethno-nationalism in particular, is often found at the fringes of the political polls and parliaments in Ukraine.Svoboda, Pravvy Sektor, and the Azov battalion/regiment are statistically speaking outliers in Ukrainian politics and only supported by small fractions of voters (although the Azov group may be seen as an iconic resistance group, especially in the aftermath of the Azovstal fighting in the spring of 2022, e.g., see CNN, 2022a).As ironic it may seem, the anti-gay agenda of the Ukrainian far right, as well as the pro-Slavic proclivities (Kyiv Post 2012), are actually quite similar to that of mainstream Russia (Feklyunina 2016;Guardian 2013).

Russification and Russophobia
According to a recent survey conducted in July 2022 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (2022), a representative sample of Ukrainian respondents conveys the message that Russia essentially is seen as an enemy.The share of Ukrainians who consider optimal relations with Russia to be friendly oriented has decreased drastically.Only 1% believes that the two countries should be united.Hence, the post-invasion narrative of Russia, among Ukrainians, is one of the rising tensions and a sense of strong nationhood.
In addition, one may identify a palpable tendency of "Russophobia" (e.g., Feklyunina 2012;Lieven 2000;Tsygankov 2009), as well as broader processes of de-Russification (Kulyk 2018), among Ukrainians.Whereas the -phobia suffix, when used among scholars in, for example, political or cultural studies (e.g., xenophobia, Islamophobia), may have pathological connotations which indicate that the fear is unwarranted, the antipathy toward Russia and Russians seems justified in the light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the large-scale invasion in 2022 in particular.As the survey shows, only small fractions of respondents seem to have endorsed the predominant Russian narrative (i.e., the conflict is the West's and/or the current Ukrainian regime's fault, e.g., see Lugansk Media Centre 2022; Tass 2022).
This process has occurred simultaneously as a development toward forced Russification of parts of the country.As said, Ukraine has since its advent had strong ties to the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian language.Even outside of Donbas and Crimea, which Russia had annexed partially or completely since 2014, there were many unforced Russian speakers in the country prior to the 2014 invasion (Gentile 2015).Hence, the new phenomenon is not the existence of Russian elements in Ukraine, such as cultural proximity and bilingualism, but the occupation of Ukraine's territory for more than 8 years.The share of occupied land has increased from about 7% in 2014 to roughly 20% as of mid-2022.In addition to Crimea and most of the Donbas region, Russian forces currently control large swaths of the Kherson and Zaporizhian oblasts in the south of Ukraine, as well as smaller parts of the Kharkov oblast near the Russian border in the northeastern parts of the country.However, counter-offensives by the Ukrainian armed forces in the last quarter of 2022 led to Ukrainian re-taking of large parts of the Kharkov and Kherson regions.
There are similarities with Ukraine's current situation and that of Korea during the Japanese occupation ).Japan's regime forced Koreans to use the Japanese language, wear Japanese clothing, take Japanese names, and so forth (e.g., Inoue 2007;Tamaki 2020).Some of these expressions and consequences of an imposing external force seem obsolete and inapplicable to the current situation in, for example, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson.However, Russia has used seemingly doctored political elections in Ukraine since 2014 (Gentile 2015), a strategy which has continued in recently occupied territory (NV 2022).Furthermore, in newly occupied areas, such as Sievierodonetsk in the Luhansk oblast, Ukrainian citizens are imposed the idea that Russia is their only true homeland (Lugansk News Agency, 2022a).Moreover, even if accurate and reliable data are missing, there are substantial indications of forced or semi-forced migration of Ukrainians to the regular territories of the Russian federation, notions that the US foreign minister Anthony J. Blinken among others have highlighted (Blinken 2022).Anecdotal evidence, which the author has obtained from unnamed informants, suggests that Ukrainians are forced to go to Russia or must otherwise bribe the Russian military to be able to migrate to areas under Ukrainian control.Boman (2021a) stresses that integration and segregation of migrants, paradoxically, tend to be parallel processes in several national and local contexts.Migration is, indeed, an overwhelming trajectory in the post-invasion context in today's Ukraine, with millions of internally displaced persons, overseas migrants, and additional number of more or less forced migrants (e.g., Burke et al. 2022).However, there is another aspect of migration that aids a less forced, yet unnatural, process of Russification.The recent survey of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (2022) indicates that many Ukrainians want to leave the territories that are occupied by Russian forces.Hence, those who manage to leave will likely hold pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian attitudes, whereas those who stay are likely having more pro-Russian views.For example, younger people in the occupied parts of Donbas can no longer obtain education in the Ukrainian language (Coynash 2019).
Hence, the parallelization of Russophobia and Russification does not imply that the same individuals simultaneously hold pro-Russian and anti-Russian views, although people's psychological constitution can be fuzzy or conflicting (Gehring 2022;Gentile 2015;Kulyk 2018).What it means, more broadly, is that the dynamic and destructive situation in almost all of Ukraine, including both occupied and nonoccupied territories, leads to an interplay between mostly forced Russification and mostly "natural" Russophobia.

Concluding remarks
The current article has examined the parallel presence of Ukrainian nationalism/ Westernization and Russification/Russophobia before and in the aftermath of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.The analysis highlights that due to specific political and cultural circumstances, Ukrainian nationalism coexists with Westernization.While this perspective partially contradicts, for example, Mearsheimer's (2014Mearsheimer's ( , 2018) ) accounts, there is considerable nuance as both nationalism and Westernization/liberalism constitute appealing ideological elements in today's Ukraine.More overlap is found between Götz' (2016) suggested perspective of a "Revisionist Russia" that mostly constitutes a top-down neo-imperialist power which, in this case, has deeply affected Ukraine, as well as Götz and Staun (2022), to the extent that the papers' scopes overlap.
Moreover, Russification and Russophobia are closely intertwined phenomena in the present war-ridden situation in Ukraine.Ukrainians hold increasingly negative views of the Russian federation, and the forced Russification of occupied parts of Ukraine may further increase such sentiments, although those who stay may have more pro-Russian attitudes.Hence, there is an interplay between these trajectories.Even though indoctrination of pro-Russian sentiments may lead to less forceful and more subtle Russification it is likely that only force can fortify such views among Ukrainians in the occupied territories of Ukraine (e.g., Donbas, Kherson).While the current analysis is not particularly concerned about military gains and losses, it seems fairly obvious that the outcomes of the war have the largest impact on the degree to which, for example, Russification is solidified on Ukrainian territory.
The current article has several limitations, especially as regards its more empirical components.For instance, even though the author has strived for a balanced account of different sources (Russian, Ukrainian, Western), it is difficult to avoid the problem with arbitrariness and confirmation bias.It is a daunting task to be fully objective and rigorous in regard to the interpretations of narratives and sources.Moreover, the selection of sources implies that many important such are omitted.Furthermore, due to lack of research reports in many areas the author had to rely on mainstream media outlets in many regards.However, such information does mostly cover basic information that can often be triangulated with, for example, pro-Russian outlets and vice versa.
Be that as it may, this article does hopefully contribute with meaningful perspectives and arguments that can have both theoretical and empirical implications.Such viewpoints might be applied to additional research and scholarly discussions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as other pertinent domains within the realms of, especially, political and international relations studies.Funding Open access funding provided by Stockholm University.

Declarations
Conflict of interest On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
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