Russia’s recolonization war against Ukraine
Deep-rooted social causes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl.2467Palavras-chave:
Recolonization war, system legitimacy, Russia, UkraineResumo
Since 2022, the war against Ukraine has become a central pillar of the Russian political system, arising from the country’s societal evolution in the post-Soviet period. A primary challenge during this era has been a recurring crisis of legitimacy. This paper argues that the recolonization war against Ukraine has served as a tool for the domestic legitimation of the established system. Utilizing data from Levada-Centr and OVD-INFO, the paper examines the role of warfare in system legitimation. It explores the social mechanisms by which Russia’s external aggression helps mitigate domestic social tensions accumulated within its dysfunctional socioeconomic and authoritarian political system, providing this system with a “war dividend”. Time series analysis reveals that the full-scale war against Ukraine has allowed Russian authorities to shift toward a new, higher level of system legitimacy, representing a new, relatively stable long-run equilibrium. Contrary to the author’s initial hypothesis, low-intensity war generally exhibited a delegitimizing effect, with no statistical evidence of a new stable equilibrium in that instance. Furthermore, the state of peace had no statistically significant influence on system legitimacy.
Downloads
Metrics
Estatísticas globais ℹ️
|
10
Visualizações
|
6
Downloads
|
|
16
Total
|
|
Referências
Applebaum, A., 2023. Russia has a new gulag: Moscow has revived the Soviet-era labor camp. The Atlantic [online], 14 July. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/russia-gulag-ukraine/674705/
Arkhipova, A., 2024. NecroSpeak: The special language of the special military operation. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 32(4), 381-412. DOI: https://doi.org/10.53483/AKMI9599
Åslund, A., 2007. Russia’s capitalist revolution: Why market reform succeeded and democracy failed. Washington, D.C.: Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Bader, M., 2016. The reintroduction of early voting in Russian Elections: A tool for electoral manipulation? Russian politics, 1(1), 95-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/24518921-00101005
Baumol, W. J., 1996. Entrepreneurship: Productive, unproductive, and destructive. Journal of Business Venturing [online], 11(1), 3-22. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-9026(94)00014-X DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-9026(94)00014-X
Bennetts, M., 2026. Russia’s Communist leader warns a 1917-style revolution may be on the way, The Times, 24 April.
Blakkisrud, H., and Kolstø, P., 2025. Political legitimacy and traditional values in Putin’s Russia. Edinburgh University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781399539005.001.0001
Boll-Palievskaya, D., 2024. Playing God in Putin’s Russia. Democracy and society [online], 20 June. Available at: https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/democracy-and-society/playing-god-in-putins-russia-7589/
Brovkin, V. N., 2024. Disillusionment in capitalism and democracy: The terrible 1990s. In: V. N. Brovkin, From Vladimir Lenin to Vladimir Putin. London: Routledge, 229-253. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003323341-11
Brusis, M., 2016. The Politics of Legitimation in Post-Soviet Eurasia. In: M. Brusis, J. Ahrens and M. S. Wessel, eds., Politics and Legitimacy in Post-Soviet Eurasia [online]. Palgrave Macmillan, 1-17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137489449 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137489449_1
Butler, M. J., 2012. Selling a ‘just’ war: Framing, legitimacy, and US military intervention. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Carnaghan, E., 2001. Thinking about Democracy: Interviews with Russian Citizens. Slavic Review [online], 60(2), 336-366. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2697274 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2697274
Casini, A., and Perron, P., 2019. Structural breaks in time series. In: A. Banerjee, ed., Oxford research encyclopedia of economics and finance. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190625979.013.179
De Melo, M., et al., 2001. Circumstance and choice. The role of initial conditions and policies in transition economies. The World Bank Economic Review, 15(1), 1-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/15.1.1
De Ruiter, E., and Schneider, Y., 2026. Top Russian publisher rejects accusations of ‘LGBT extremism’ following police probe. Euronews [online], 22 April. Available at: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2026/04/22/top-russian-publisher-rejects-accusations-of-lgbt-extremism-following-police-probe
Domańska, M., and Chawryło, K., 2025. The great Russian firewall: The Kremlin’s ultimate crackdown on internet freedom [online]. Centre for Eastern Studies, 19 December. Available at: https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/osw-report/2025-12-19/great-russian-firewall
Durkheim, E., 1960[1928]. Socialism. New York: Collier.
Durkheim, E., 1984[1893]. The division of labour in society. London: Macmillan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17729-5
Durkheim, E., 1998. Contributions to l’Année Sociologique. New York: Free Press.
Duvanova, D., Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy, A., and Zadorozhna, O., 2023. Can black tulips stop Russia again? Journal of Comparative Economics [online], 51(4), 1274-1288. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.06.009 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2023.06.009
Engle, R. F., and Granger, C. W. J., 1987. Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing. Econometrica, 55(2), 251-276. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1913236
Enikolopov, R., et al., 2013. Field experiment estimate of electoral fraud in Russian parliamentary elections. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 110(2), 448-452. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1206770110
Erlich, A., and Garner, C., 2021. Subgroup differences in implicit associations and explicit attitudes during wartime. International Studies Quarterly [online], 65(2), 528–541. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab005
Federal State Statistics Service, 2025. Short-term economic indicators of the Russian Federation. Moscow: Russian Federal Service of State Statistics.
Ferraro, V., 2024. Why Russia invaded Ukraine and how wars benefit autocrats: The domestic sources of the Russo-Ukrainian War. International Political Science Review, 45(2), 170–191. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121231215048
Finlay, C. J., 2019. Justification and legitimacy at war: On the sources of moral guidance for soldiers. Ethics [online], 129(4), 576-602. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1086/702973 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/702973
FOM.RU, 2008. Vooruzhennyj konflikt v Juzhnoj Osetii [Military conflict in South Ossetia] [online]. FOM.RU, 13 August. Available at: http://bd.fom.ru/report/map/dominant/dominant2008/dom0832/osetia01
Gajniyarov, I., 2026. Validating the architecture of cognitive distortions in Russian discourse using artificial intelligence and bootstrap analysis. Frontiers in Psychology [online], 17:1740864. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1740864 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1740864
Geis, A., and Schlag, G., 2017. ‘The facts cannot be denied’: Legitimacy, war and the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Global Discourse [online], 7(2–3), 285–303. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2017.1288488 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2017.1288488
Gel’man, V., 2015. Russia’s flight from freedom: why? In: V. Gel’man, Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes. University of Pittsburgh Press, 35-62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt155jmv1
Giannini, T. R., 2018. Political legitimacy and private governance of human rights: Community-business social contracts and constitutional moments. In: G. L. Neuman and S. Voeneky, eds., Human rights, democracy, and legitimacy in a world of disorder [online]. Cambridge University Press, 209-233. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108355704.010 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108355704.010
Gilley, B., 2006. The determinants of state legitimacy: Results for 72 countries. International Political Science Review, 27(1), 47–71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512106058634
Goldman, W. Z., 2011. Inventing the enemy: Denunciation and terror in Stalin’s Russia. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511994906
Goode, J. P., 2025. Russian propaganda from V to Z: Projecting banal and everyday nationalism in unsettled times. Nationalities Papers [online], 1–21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2025.28 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2025.28
Goode, P., 2023. How Russian television normalizes the war. Riddle [online], 14 July. Available at: https://ridl.io/how-russian-television-normalizes-the-war/
Hale, H. E., 2018. How Crimea pays: Media, rallying ‘round the flag, and authoritarian support. Comparative Politics [online], 50(3), 369–391. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5129/001041518822704953 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5129/001041518822704953
Harvey, C. J., 2020. Principal–agent dynamics and electoral manipulation: Local risks, patronage and tactical variation in Russian elections, 2003–2012. Europe-Asia Studies, 72(5), 837-862. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2019.1681363
Harvey, C. J., 2022. Why allow local elections? Mobilization, manipulation, and the abolition of Russian mayoral elections. Russian Politics, 7, 237-264. DOI: https://doi.org/10.30965/24518921-00604019
Hurrelmann, A., et al., 2005. The democratic nation state: erosion, or transformation, of legitimacy. Is there a legitimation crisis of the nation-state? European review, 13(1), 119-137. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798705000220
Johnson, C., and Watson, L., 2015. Sociology of legitimacy. In: J. D. Wright, ed., International encyclopaedia of the social and behavioral sciences, 13, 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Johnson, C., Dowd, T. J., and Ridgeway, C., 2006. Legitimacy as a social process. Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 53–78. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123101
Kazun, A., 2016. Framing sanctions in the Russian media: The rally effect and Putin’s enduring popularity. Demokratizatsiya, 24(3), 327-350.
Kim, H., and Siegel, J. I., 2024. Paying for legitimacy: Autocracy, nonmarket strategy, and the liability of foreignness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 69(1), 131–171. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392231217676
Kizilova, K., and Norris, P., 2024. “Rally around the flag” effects in the Russian-Ukrainian war. European Political Science [online], 23(2), 234–250. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-023-00450-9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-023-00450-9
Kobak, D., Shpilkin, S., and Pshenichnikov, M.S., 2018. Putin’s peaks: Russian election data revisited. Significance, 5(3), 8-9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2018.01141.x
Kosals, L., 2007. Essay on clan capitalism in Russia. Acta Oeconomica, 57(1), 67-85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1556/aoecon.57.2007.1.5
Kuzio, T., 2022. Imperial nationalism as the driver behind Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nations and Nationalism, 29(1), 30–38. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12875
Lane, D., 2007. The transformation of state socialism: System change, capitalism or something else? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laruelle, M., 2025. Ideology and meaning-making under the Putin regime. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503641600
Ledeneva, A., 2013. Can Russia modernise? Sistema, power networks and informal governance [online]. New York: Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511978494 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511978494
Levada-Centr, 2021. Nostal'gija po SSSR [Nostalgia for the USSR] [online]. Moscow: Levada-Centr, 12 December. Available at: https://www.levada.ru/2021/12/24/nostalgiya-po-sssr-3/
Levada-Centr, 2024. Obshhestvennoe mnenie – 2023 [Public Opinion – 2023] [online]. Moscow: Levada-Centr. Available at: https://www.levada.ru/sbornik-obshhestvennoe-mnenie/obshhestvennoe-mnenie-2023/
Lippi, A., 2024. Legitimacy and legitimation of political authorities: Credibility and trust in political institutions. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035319565
Mazerolle, L., et al., 2013. Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9, 245–74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-013-9175-2
Melé, D., and Armengou, J., 2016. Moral legitimacy in controversial projects and its relationship with social license to operate: A case study. Journal of Business Ethics, 136, 729–74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2866-z
Michalski, M., and Gow, J., 2007. War, image and legitimacy: viewing contemporary conflict. London/New York: Routledge.
Mickiewicz, E., 1997. Changing channels: Television and the struggle for power in Russia. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195101638.001.0001
Mollica, M., 2011. Erosion of legitimacy: A Lebanese case of collapsed governance. In: I. Pardo and G. B. Prato, eds., Citizenship and the legitimacy of governance. Farnham: Ashgate, 191-210.
North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., and Weingast, B. R., 2009. Violence and social orders: A conceptual framework for interpreting recorded human history. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575839
Olimpieva, I., 2024. Russians and the war: Introduction to the special issue. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, 32(4), 299-308. DOI: https://doi.org/10.53483/VOFU3118
OVD-Info, 2025. Repression at the legislative level since the full-scale invasion. OVD-Info [online], 22 February. Available at: https://ovd.info/en/repression-legislative-level
Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y., and Smith, R. J., 2001. Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships. Journal of applied econometrics, 16(3), 289–326. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.616
Peter, F., 2023. The grounds of political legitimacy. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198872382.001.0001
Political Prisoners. Memorial, 2025. History of political repressions in modern Russia [online]. Moscow: Political Prisoners. Memorial. Available at: https://memopzk.org/en/history/
Putin, V., 2005. Annual address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. Kremlin.ru [online], 25 April. Available at: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931
Rothstein, B., 2009. Creating political legitimacy: Electoral democracy versus quality of government. American Behavioral Scientist, 53(3), 311-330. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764209338795
Schmies, O., 2023. Russia’s denunciation epidemic: The Kremlin is exploiting dark, old instincts among its population as it spreads a truthless version of Russian history. CEPA [online], 22 May. Available at: https://cepa.org/article/russias-denunciation-epidemic/
Schmitt, C., 2004[1912]. Legality and legitimacy. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385769
Schoon, E. W. and DeRoche, C., 2019. Legitimacy building in policy and practice: The case of US private military and security contractors (PMSCs) in Afghanistan. In: O. Swed and T. Crosbie, eds., The sociology of privatized security. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 67-83. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98222-9_4
Schoon, E. W., 2022. Operationalizing legitimacy. American Sociological Review, 87(3), 478-503. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00031224221081379
Seo, T., and Horiuchi, Y., 2024. Natural experiments of the rally ‘round the flag effects using worldwide surveys. Journal of Conflict Resolution [online], 68(2-3), 269–293. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231171310 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231171310
Sharafutdinova, G., 2010. Political consequences of crony capitalism inside Russia. University of Notre Dame Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.21995895
Shleifer, А., and Treisman, D., 2000. Without a map: Political tactics and economic reform in Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7261.001.0001
Sokolov, B., et al., 2018. Disillusionment and anti-Americanism in Russia: From pro-American to anti-American attitudes, 1993–2009. International Studies Quarterly, 62(3), 534–547. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqy013
Studebaker, B. M., 2022. Legitimacy crises in embedded democracies. Contemporary Political Theory [online], 22(2), 230–250. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-022-00588-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-022-00588-z
Tankebe, J., and Liebling, A., eds., 2013. Legitimacy and criminal justice: An international exploration. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198701996.001.0001
Turner, F. C., and Carballo, M., 2009. Cycles of legitimacy and delegitimation across regimes in Argentina, 1900–2008. International Social Science Journal, 60(196), 273-283. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2451.2010.01720.x
Tyler, T. R., 1990. Why people obey the law. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tyler, T. R., and Huo, Y. J., 2002. Trust in the law: encouraging public cooperation with the police and courts. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Volkov, D., 2024. I ne drug, i ne vrag, a kak? [Neither friend nor foe, but how?] Levada-Centr [online], 9 December. Available at: https://www.levada.ru/2024/12/09/i-ne-drug-i-ne-vrag-a-kak/
Volkov, V., 2002. Violent entrepreneurs: The use of force in the making of Russian capitalism. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
von Soest, C., and Grauvogel, J., 2016. Comparing legitimation strategies in post-Soviet countries. In: M. Brusis, J. Ahrens and M. S. Wessel, eds., Politics and legitimacy in post-Soviet Eurasia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 18-46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137489449_2
Weber, M., 1964[1920]. The theory of social and economic organization. New York: Free Press.
Wedel, J., 2003. Dirty togetherness: Institutional nomads, networks, and the state–private interface in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Polish Sociological Review, 142, 139–159.
Wegren, S. K., and Slider, D., 2025. Has Russia reverted to totalitarianism? Demokratizatsiya: The journal of post-Soviet democratization, 33(1), 3-40.
Yurchak, A., 2006. Everything was forever, until it was no more: The last Soviet generation. Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Publicado
Como Citar
Edição
Seção
Licença
Copyright (c) 2026 Leonid Kosals
Este trabalho está licenciado sob uma licença Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence and it regulates how others can use your work. Further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
