Readers of this blog may know that I have longstanding research as well as personal/family connections in Ukraine and that I have sometimes run a parallel blog on issues related to that country. (Called “UKR-TAZ: A Ukrainian Temporary Autonomous Zone,” the blog is found here.) I recently began posting to that blog more regularly with observations and analytical considerations on the impending, and now the fully actual, broad-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Since war has a way of obviating any concern for other, less immediate things — from the Covid pandemic (how many of the faces sheltering in Kyïv’s or Kharkiv’s underground are wearing masks?) to climate change (has it even been mentioned in the news in the last few weeks?) — the question of the cultural and political implications of this war and its after-effects is an important one for all of us to think about.
One of the arguments I’ve made on UKR-TAZ is that the invasion of Ukraine marks the appearance of a new form of 21st century fascism, where “fascism” consists of a sense of deep historical grievance, a desire for “palingenetic” rebirth (in this case, of Great Russia), a leadership cult, and an “industrial strength” application of military technology. My goal in part was to revive the question of what fascism is and how it is to be approached, as I see global as well as environmental implications to that question (about which I plan to write more). Jason Stanley has just published a piece in The Guardian making the case for Putin’s fascism and even antisemitism more clearly than I could; it’s recommended reading.
My concern has been, all along, that a precipitous event, a “hyper-event” like the current invasion of Ukraine, could set into motion a global political realignment creating both a new cold war and potential hot wars, which would completely incapacitate our collective will and ability to deal with climate change and the other major challenges facing the world. It doesn’t take much for a war like this to spiral out of control (cyberattacks, for instance, aren’t geographically restricted in their scope, and it would be easy for a set of them to turn into accusations and counterattacks involving Russia, the US, and other NATO countries).
Among the more interesting, and underreported, media dimensions of the current war has been the involvement of #Anonymous, the hacker collective that has apparently declared cyber war on the Russian state, taking down Putin’s presidential web site and propaganda channel RT News, hacking into the Russian Ministry of Defense and publicly leaking its database, and even breaking into Russian state media to play messages from Ukrainian president Zelensky and Ukrainian music. If there is one major public that needs to be reached right now, it is the Russian public.
Victories like that aside, however, the prospects for a more expansive cyber war remain deeply concerning, to say the least.
The last few days have been completely consuming for me — watching media reports, following social media, hearing from friends, relatives, and colleagues in Ukraine, and supporting them in whatever way I can. I’ll be speaking on a panel at the University of Vermont on Monday and at the UC Santa Barbara on Wednesday. And while I’m currently feeling buoyed by the Ukrainian resistance, brave as it is (see the woman in the video below), the growing Russian anti-war movement (despite the daily arrests of hundreds in dozens of Russian cities), and the global support for Ukraine (most of it non-military), it’s all such an extremely precarious, and frankly horrifying situation. The needless destruction of lives and of cities (Kyïv is a beautiful city, perhaps my favorite in the world), the countless refugees, and the many other after-effects of this war make it a horrific, if hardly unique, moment in history.
For readers interested in following my contributions on the ongoing war and its implications, I recommend following me on Twitter and Facebook. That said, there are many better informed and more directly involved people than me. I point to them, in my own posts.
