Ukrainian identity is considered in terms of citizenship and belonging to local communities rather than based on ethnicity or lingual preferences. During the war, the share of those who identify as the citizens of Ukraine has increased significantly as well as the number of those who are proud to be Ukrainians. Although these trends aren`t new to Ukrainian society, previously affected by the Orange Revolution (2004), Revolution of Dignity, and the following Russian aggression in 2014, these attitudes and identities were also enhanced by the decentralization and civil society development during the previous years.
Counting on the Russian-speaking group which remained more or less stable quantitatively, the Russian regime significantly miscalculated this revival of civicness among Ukrainians as well as a high level of competitiveness and polarization between political elites and media was misperceived as that negatively affecting national unity and the attitudes to the government and democracy in general. The new shifts that arose from the Russian-Ukrainian war are related to the significant increase of the European identity, the leap of the large jump of trust in public institutions, and the social cohesion of the Ukrainian society.
Responding to numerous issues and challenges of the war the civil society expanded dramatically beyond the set of NGOs and volunteers’ networks that appeared previously. The new activities of the civil society are described in the presentation as well as some assumptions regarding the long-term influence of these trends on Ukrainian politics and society are made.
