Institute of Sociology NASU

Old or New? Russia’s War against Ukraine and Post-Soviet identity politics

stmm. 2025 (4): 5-28

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2025.04.005

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2025-4/3.pdf

PHILIPP CASULA, Dr., Lecturer, Department of European Studies and Slavic Studies, University of Fribourg (Bd de Pérolles, 90, Fribourg, Switzerland, 1700)

philipp.casula@unifr.ch

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1464-4600

SCOPUS ID: 55786144600

The New wars paradigm was an important heuristic tool for understanding the organised violence that occurred in most of Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism in 1989. This approach was particularly useful for shedding light on the underlying goals of wars, the new combatants involved and how conflict is funded in a globalised world. While the violence used to annex Crimea and seize Luhansk and Donetsk from Ukraine in 2014 and afterwards seemed largely in line with the tenets of the New wars paradigm, Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022 appears to hark back to the methods of the ‘old wars’. This article aims to analyse the mechanics of the current conflict from the perspective of the New wars paradigm, rather than to explain the reasons for the war. Thus, the article provides both an analysis of the war Russia has launched against Ukraine and a reflection on the relevance of the concept of New wars. The article is divided into two sections. The first section discusses the key elements of the New wars paradigm, offering a critical perspective from biopolitics and postcolonialism. The second section uses the findings from the first one to discuss the war in Ukraine in theoretical terms.

Keywords: Ukraine, Russia, War, New war, neo-imperialism, biopolitics, postcolonialism, deglobalization

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Received 02.07.2025