Ukraine's messaging misses the cultural mark
Ukraine badly needs soldiers and can bolster recruitment through former Soviet satellites by changing its messaging strategy.
Executive Summary: Ukraine faces challenges in recruiting soldiers amidst ongoing conflict with Russia. It needs a more inclusive narrative to unite its ethnically diverse population and gain support from former Soviet states. Meanwhile, Russia portrays Ukraine's military as extremist-led to justify potential aggression. International aid provides an advantage, but Ukraine must navigate historical complexities to maintain support and strengthen its defense against Russian actions while pursuing sovereignty.
Navigating Ukraine's Recruitment and Messaging Challenges Amidst Russian Conflict
Ukraine badly needs soldiers and can bolster recruitment through former Soviet satellites by changing its messaging strategy. The Republic of Ukraine needs money and weapons, but desperately needs soldiers. If ranks or weapons fall short, Ukraine will have to resort to leveraging criminal networks for either. In turn, Russia will label the Ukrainian army a group of terrorists supported by international neo-Nazis. A strategic Russian informational narrative, now already established, which Russia will argue at the international court in its defense of more aggressive kinetic action and possible occupation.
Imagine Ukraine’s narrative for independence enmeshing with the destiny of former Soviet peoples across the Baltics, the Caucasus’s, and Central Asia. The energy may redirect the impending outcome. Russia's influence already entangles Soviet satellites to one degree or another. This is the core audience who has vested interest in seeing a democratic, autonomous Ukraine with EU and NATO membership.
The fact that Russia “declared official” war in 2022 is a Russian narrative. Ukraine's military and citizens have been incurring battlefield losses since 2014. Regardless of the foe's status as a regular or irregular solider. The major factor for Ukraine’s military recruitment attrition is the side effects of 10 years+ warfare on the population.
Ukraine stands an asymmetric position against the Russian Federation. The impact of failing to leverage language and culture inclusively to compensate hinders Ukraine's success for independence. The time has come posthaste to change Ukraine’s messaging strategy.
Ukraine's struggle to recruit involves a strategic misstep that focuses on Ukrainian culture and language. Ukraine will garner support from peoples of the former Soviet Union through collective identity in its messaging campaign by speaking to the interest of autonomous governance. The Ukrainian military's February 2024 initiative to address recruitment attrition, with a new office in Kyiv, could represent a new phase in its messaging strategy.
In 2014, the Russian Federation challenged Ukraine’s sovereignty by annexing Crimea, and creating separatists’ movements in the border regions of Donetsk and Lugansk. Russia defends its actions based on Russo-Slavic culture and border security. Ukraine had to define its cultural identity differently than Russia, while defending borders and rallying international support to fight a larger foe. Indeed, a complex dilemma for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government’s ethnocentric theme initially generated tremendous momentum for Ukraine's distinct right to sovereignty. Ukrainian flags draped American buildings. Some Caucasians and Russians augmented Ukraine's army. Russian musicians held fundraising concerts to support Ukrainians. Though, by 2024 this quintessential esprit de guerre is dissipating because Ukraine is not ethnically homogeneous.
Ukraine's ethnic diversity and common thread of Soviet culture and Russian language is an under-leveraged factor in Ukraine's messaging strategy. While an estimated 67% of Ukraine's population is ethnically Ukrainian, nearly 33% are not. The independence of Ukraine seems to mean freedom for Ukrainians to be Ukrainian. For the mix of Muslim Caucasians, Jews, Georgians, Belarusians, Hungarians, Russians, and Tatars, Ukraine's sovereignty means life without the Russian government's interference.
When Ukraine changed the national language to Ukrainian in 2019, citizens regarded the decision as logical. The Ukrainian government took it one step further to eliminate Russian as a de facto language. Even pressing businesses to request customers attempt Ukrainian first rather than Russian. Expecting citizens to learn Ukrainian after 30, 40, 50 years of Russian.
Offering free Ukrainian language classes misses the point. The societal stigma to speak Russian, now fermenting, alienates and isolates a portion of the population. Globally it sends a message that Ukraine is fighting for ethnic Ukrainians.
It will serve Ukraine well to speak on a deeper level to the greater Russian-speaking community. Like it or not, Russian is the bridge language. Some ethnic Ukrainians grew-up in Russian-speaking households. Especially true of those born during the Soviet Union. There are Ukrainians with Russian family members, which influences a dynamic cultural identity. This portion of Ukrainian society represents potential soldiers, resistance fighters, and community builders.
Then, there is the global Russian-speaking community to consider, whether it be near or far. There is no love lost for Stalin nor communism amongst peoples of the former Soviet Union. Paradoxically, some feel nostalgia over the unity and security in the predictability of Soviet times. A sentiment free-markets and democracies do not afford.
The films, tv shows, music, literature, and jokes were all constructed in Russian. There is cultural connection in history through the Russian language. Despite any underlying loathing for having to use Russian. There is human connection in hating aspects of the Russian system.
Some former Soviet people look cynically at Ukraine's bid for freedom. Certain satellite nations restrain support, evaluating U.S. and Western partners steps to protect Ukraine. The fear of Russia's retaliation is greater than the want for democracy. Still, there remains a soul that desires freedom from Russia's prerogatives. The symbolic new phase of democratic sovereignty for Russia’s satellite states could be Ukraine. A prospect which may entice other satellites to risk a move against Russia by offering money, resources, or soldiers.
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania effectively leveraged collective identity to unite against Russian invasion between 1986-1991. The bonds of the Singing Revolution amongst the trio were too strong to break prior to Soviet invasion. This war philosophy is derived significantly from classical Chinese military thought. It requires breaking and dividing the enemy mentally and emotionally prior to ground war. Or else, never-ending battle entrenches the state which exposes vulnerabilities, wastes resources, and risks state collapse.
Contrarily, the Chechen wars (1991-2000) are a prime example of unacceptable risk in the Russian warfare philosophy. The Chechen people were strongly united previously. During the war’s course, slowly the Russian government divided the Chechen population. Despite Russia’s victory, the cost, exposure, regional instability, and global spillover remain an international embarrassment.
Nearly half the ethnic Chechen population, a previously tightly knit community, remain refugees who refuse to return permanently. In its wake, it took Russia nearly 20 years to secure the North Caucasus and protect Russian cities from suicide bombings. The Chechen wars remain a touchy subject because it nearly broke Russia.
The fate of the 1st Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1994-1996) foreshadows Ukraine's fate on its current trajectory. Ichkeria lost its battle for an independent democracy first led by former Soviet Air Force General Dzhokhar Dudayev. In the early 1990s, President Herbert Walker Bush's administration supported Chechnya’s fight for a democratic state. Notwithstanding the legendary war fighting skills of the Vainakh, Ichkeria’s forces could not compete with the Russian Federation's cluster bombs and power of numbers.
By 1996, Ichkerian forces resorted to criminal organizations for weapons and recruitment. These criminal networks supplied weapons to terrorist organizations like Al-Qaeda. Once discovering evidence, Russia demonstrated to the International Community that Ichkeria’s bandits were nothing but jihadists. The counter parts to the 1991 Twin Towers’ bombing. Popularly, Chechens went from Soviet victims and freedom fighters to terrorists, Islamic extremists, Wahhabis.
It seems Ukraine is falling into this trap as its resources deplete. Russia's "denazification" narrative in Ukraine mirrors the "Wahhabism eradication" policy in Chechnya. Ukraine is largely Orthodox Christian, making 'Nazism' a more fitting narrative than jihadism. Without Ukraine executing effective messaging the intentionally skewed narrative of a neo-Nazi Ukrainian army may win the war of international perception as time goes by.
The U.S. Senate and Germany passed aid packages valued in billions to Ukraine in February 2024. Still awaiting the U.S. House of Representative’s approval, the West’s significant aid is an advantage Ukraine has which the 1994 Ichkerian Republic did not. Chechen ethnic identity afforded a cultural advantage, generational recruitment pools, that Ukraine is without.
If Ukraine turns desperately to criminal networks for recruitment, Russia's reaction will be fast and fierce. In this scenario, Russia may very well leverage this sort of anomaly to make a case for occupation at the UN Security Council. In many ways, Ukraine is in an unpoised fight without partners alongside in the trenches.
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