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'Bayraktar', a pop/rap song written by a Ukrainian soldier following Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, went viral, spawning various covers, from electronic dance music to hardcore punk. I analyse this digital archive of 19 'Bayraktar' songs, including five that share only the title with Taras Borovok's paradigmatic song, and contextualise it within the broader historical and decolonial frameworks of Ukrainian resistance music, including the protest music of the Orange Revolution and the Euromaidan demonstrations, and the anti-war music produced during the Donbas war and in the first six months of the ongoing Russia–Ukraine war. I apply the method of multimodal critical discourse analysis to highlight the ways that sound, image (videos and stills) and text (lyrics and verbal descriptions on YouTube) forge nationalist and global protest rhetorics, and also function pragmatically to raise awareness, fundraise for the armed forces and humanitarian efforts, and boost morale in Ukraine and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having declared independence in 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine gained strategic importance in terms of its geographical location. It is regarded a "buffer zone" for both the European Union (EU) and Russia. There is a division within the country into the pro-Western and pro-Russian options. Ukraine's aspiration for the UE membership has faced Russia's objection since time immemorial. In the past, Ukraine preferred to pursue a balance policy between Russia and the EU. Ukraine's attempt to approach the West with the Orange Revolution, its inclusion in the European Neighbourhood Policy, its participation in the Eastern Partnership program were perceived as a threat by Russia. The Ukrainian crisis, in particular, brought these two countries face to face. This crisis also deeply affected both the EU's energy policy and its relations with Russia. After all the developments that followed, the issue of Ukraine's membership in the EU remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western benefactors must apply tougher conditionalities to encourage Ukraine's policymakers to reform and to resist elite spoilers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How was the business-state symbiosis in Ukraine sustained throughout the political turbulences of the Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity? Using the method of social network analysis (SNA), we demonstrate how the political – formal and informal – ties of Ukrainian big business to the different branches of state power evolved and what models of state-business relations developed during each presidency. The analysis covers the period of 2007-2018 and focuses on the comparison of the relational structures between political and business elites in Ukraine over a decade. We trace the visibility of various business cliques within political institutions during the last 10 years, and track changes in business-state relations through influential persons, positions, groups and network structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the symbolic politics of three pro-state movements that emerged from the "preventive counterrevolution" launched by the Kremlin in response to Ukraine's Orange Revolution. In 2005, youth movement Nashi played upon war memory at its rallies and branded the opposition "fascist"; in 2012, the Anti-Orange Committee countered opposition protests with mass gatherings at Moscow's war commemoration sites; in 2015, Antimaidan brought thousands onto Russia's streets to denounce US-backed regime change and alleged neo-Nazism in Kiev. I show how evocation of the enemy image, through reference to the war experience, played a key role in the symbolism of the preventive counterrevolution. Interviews with activists in these movements discussing their symbolic politics reveal an opposing victim/victor narrative based on an interplay of two World War II myths—the "Great Victory" and the "fascist threat." Moving beyond approaches that view the Soviet and Russian World War II cult as a triumphalist narrative of the Great Victory over fascism, I conclude that its threat component is an understudied element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While democratic revolutions are not uniform in their pursuit of democracy, they do have something in common: those calling for revolution and participating in demonstrations do so under the banner of democracy. However, studies have revealed that these citizens were not at first committed to democracy per se; rather, they took the opportunity to vent their frustration against the current regime because of their struggle against poverty and social inequality. Why, then, do citizens who are not pursuing democracy per se participate in revolutions under the banner of democracy? Previous studies have failed to clarify this point. To fill this gap, we outline three strategic rationalities and necessities behind the use of "democracy" as a common slogan to justify civil revolutions: 1) organizing large scale dissident movements in a country; 2) attracting international support; and 3) imitating successful examples from the past. Evidence from the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine supports this theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with the analytical category of 'revolution', drawing from contemporary and historical examples. Based on ethnographic research with leftist activists in Ukraine during the entire period of Euromaidan in 2013–14, I question the assumption that this should be accepted as a revolutionary event. Grounding my analysis in historical discussions of the Russian and Ukrainian revolutions of 1917–21, and comparing Euromaidan with other post-socialist revolutions, I argue that 'revolution' must be understood as a complex process with multiple claimants. Using definitions from political science, anthropology and philosophy, I suggest that revolutionary change is not simply the replacement of political figures at the head of a state. Rather, revolution should be seen as a long process that includes both social and political change. The case of contemporary Ukraine and the Euromaidan protests do not necessarily fulfil this understanding of revolution, but the unquestioned application of the term to these events provoke an essential challenge to understanding contemporary and historical political change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, Viktor Ianukovych, a candidate whose democratic credentials were disputed and whose shady background hardly inspired feelings of admiration or trust, was elected president of Ukraine. By asking the voters themselves on the eve of the election how such an individual could have won their votes, this article shows that when Ukrainians went to vote in 2010, they evaluated the qualities and the policy-issues associated with Ianukovych higher than those ascribed to his opponent, Iuliia Tymoshenko, even if only slightly so. In a Ukraine that since the Orange Revolution in 2004 has come increasingly to embrace democracy, the 2010 presidential elections marked a certain democracy fatigue that in the end came to favour Ianukovych's "strong hand" image. Regional belonging is a usual factor in Ukrainian voting, and it played a role in the political assessments of the 2010 presidential election. However, issues of identity and language were among the lowest ranked in both eastern and western Ukraine, far behind the heated topics of jobs, unemployment, and welfare services. Later, identity-politics became more accentuated in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and the ensuing war between Ukraine and Russia. In 2010, what united many voters regardless of region was a stronger concern for jobs and welfare services than for democratic commitment in the candidates, or for identity politics. Those more personal issues paved the way for Ianukovych to become the president of Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the religious and spiritual aspect of the Euromaidan protests; specifically, the role of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate and to what extent the UOC(MP) can justifiably be seen as a tool of Russian 'soft power' cultural and ideational influence. It examines the degree of institutional and ideological leverage that Moscow is able to exercise over the Ukrainian church, and then explores the position of the church during the protests, and how this has affected the authority and legitimacy of its standing as an opinion leader in Ukrainian society in the wake of the 'Revolution of Dignity'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fraudulent elections can reduce citizen trust in elections and other political institutions. But what about the impact of contentious elections that resolve successfully, leading to democratizing change? Do national movements toward democracy trump individual experiences with electoral manipulation? Using public opinion survey data collected before and after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, we evaluate changes in voter confidence in electoral practices, political institutions, and democracy. Although national trends show increased voter confidence overall, subnational variation suggests pervasive partisan differences in opinions about election quality and institutional confidence. Remarkably, we find that direct exposure to fraud matters far less than anticipated; voters who were personally exposed to fraud felt no more or less confident than their co-partisans. We show that partisanship and the national electoral context may interact in ways that complicate the effects of democratizing elections, suggesting important avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volodymyr Vynnyčenko portrayed the "Ukrainian Revolution" in four different literary genres: in his diary, in an historiographic epic, in a drama, and in a short novel. In each of these representations, another aspect prevails. The diary focuses on Vynnyčenko's personal role in the Ukrainian nation-building project. The epic endows the failure of the independent Ukrainian state with a historiosophic necessity. The drama translates the social and national dilemmas in Ukraine into a family tragedy. The short novel portrays the hero not as an agent in history, but as an evolving consciousness. Behind all four literary elaborations, a quite heterogeneous mix of philosophical sources can be observed. Vynnyčenko shares with Hegel the belief that every free nation should be in possession of a state. He follows Marx in his economic criticism of capitalist exploitation and his contempt for the bourgeoisie. Finally, he reveres Nietzsche for his concept of the irrational will and his appreciation of 'great men' in history. It was clear for Vynnyčenko, that he himself was predestined to play an important role in history. However, he used his historiosophic musings in the four literary genres to prove an essential point: the failure of his Ukrainian project was not his personal shortcoming, but must be ascribed to the belated historical development of the Ukrainian nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares two different experiences of EU engagement in mediation in Ukraine: the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan crisis in 2013-2014. This comparison reflects two different outcomes of EU mediation practices under similar circumstances of political conflict between domestic political actors. The changing degree of collective EU authority recognized by other actors is the main driver behind varying EU mediation practices and outcomes. Authority conferred on the EU as a collective actor represents the legitimacy of its power, resources and competence to conduct mediation. However, such authority is always circumscribed by crisis-specific circumstances and volatile configurations of forces. Therefore, differing degrees of authority explain shifts in the effectiveness of EU mediation. To capture the authority of EU mediators in specific crisis situations, this article employs and interprets firsthand accounts of the experiences of actors directly involved in mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On August 1, 1990, there was an unprecedented event in the Ukrainian town of Chervonohrad: a crowd gathered at the central square and, for the first time in the USSR, demolished a monument to Lenin. The demolition caused a political scandal and was the first of a chain of Lenin statue topplings all over Soviet Ukraine and beyond. Chervonohrad's deconstruction is often compared to the array of Lenin statue demolitions that took place during the 2013-14 Ukrainian Revolution. Yet, this historic comparison does not answer the question: why was Chervonohrad, out of all the Soviet political centres and peripheral towns, meant to go down in history in this monumental way? Although the transformation of monumental landscapes has been among the most studied aspects of the post-Soviet condition, it has often been approached unilaterally. The studies of dismantled monuments have explored the largest scale of national and international politics, national imageries, and historic myth. The overwhelming attention paid to major metropolitan areas overshadowed the importance of place politics, local actors, and power relationships within former Soviet republics. As a result, the transformation of Soviet monumental landscapes has been sometimes misread as a top-down geopolitical process over the plain and ghostly backgrounds of post-Soviet metropolitan cityscapes. This article questions the scales and methods used to study monumental deconstruction. While national politics were undoubtedly an integral part of Chervonohrad's milestone event, this study aims to understand the complex causes that led to the removal of the monument through Chervonohrad's politics of place, the history of urban displacement and appropriation, and the agents and constellations that made this demolition possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that an important concept of authoritarian learning is missing. This is how leaders learn from domestic experience. Using Yanukovych's defeat in the Orange Revolution, the paper illustrates how he adapted to stop a new Colour Revolution. Through using Party of Regions resources, Yanukovych improved his image, developed Party of Region's electoral success, controlled institutions and the political system, coerced the opposition, built-up security forces and pro-regime groups and created a family. While the paper finds that Yanukovych adapted to the failure of the Orange Revolution these adjustments contributed to the Euromaidan and the learning from domestic experience resulted in ultimate failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Viktor Yanukovych's ouster from power in 2014 was widely celebrated in Europe as a step forward for democracy in Ukraine. What is now somewhat forgotten, however, is that the European Union (EU) was closely engaged with the Yanukovych regime, offering it a favorable Association Agreement even as the country regressed with respect to democracy. This article examines the EU's policy toward Ukraine during Yanukovych's presidency (2010-2014), highlighting the disconnection between the EU's rhetorical commitment to democracy and events in Ukraine. It explores the attempt by the EU to impose conditionality, arguing that EU frustration with Ukraine eventually led it to water down its demands in the hopes of claiming success in furthering EU-Ukraine ties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russian politics has been characterised by increasing cultural and political conservatism since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. This article argues that Putin’s turn to cultural conservatism is a reaction to a crisis in Russia’s neo-patrimonial system. The article presents a model of neo-patrimonialism and argues that the turn to cultural conservatism under Putin is only a partial solution to the problems of neo-patrimonialism in Russia. This is because the turn towards cultural conservatism does not define any internal transformational tasks for Putin to fulfil. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As more than a billion people had done previously, on November 21, 2013, Ukrainian journalist and activist Mustafa Nayem wrote a Facebook post; this post, however, would have a much larger impact on subsequent political developments than most that had preceded it. Frustrated with President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a long-promised association agreement with the European Union, Nayem asked others who shared his frustration to comment on his post. Even more importantly, Nayem wrote that if the post received at least 1000 comments from people willing to join him, they should all go to Independence Square to protest. And indeed they did: starting with just a few thousand people, the protests would swell to be the largest since Ukraine’s independence, particularly after police used force against protesters at the end of November 2013. Eventually, these protests led to the resignation of the government, the exile of the former president, and indirectly to the secession of Crimea and the ongoing conflict in the eastern part of the country. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, Ukrainian media have provided a number of Russian journalists an alternative place to continue their career, whether they were looking for a comparatively free and pluralistic media space, a new job, or safety. The number of Russian media professionals in Ukraine increased in the subsequent years. Euromaidan and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by Russia's military intervention in Donbas, have contributed to decisions to move or extend their stay in Ukraine. However, these events have also complicated the position of Russian journalists in Ukraine. This paper seeks to explore the challenges connected with being a Russian journalist and working in Ukraine-based media during Russia's hybrid war against Ukraine. This population of migrant media workers has arrived from an aggressor country, where mainstream media have been producing manipulative anti-Ukrainian discourse. They are diverse in terms of social backgrounds and migration histories, but mostly are qualified and experienced professionals. They do not form a tightly knit migrant community, and do not work for media outlets targeting such a community. This article addresses the experiences of a number of these media personalities, drawing upon a series of interviews conducted in late 2015, and open source materials. I argue that the Maidan, the annexation of Crimea, and the ongoing conflict have had a significant impact on Russian migrant journalists in Ukraine, by providing a migration context, influencing their work ethics and making them particularly sensitive to the ideas of responsibility and journalistic subjectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom in new institutional economics suggests that property rights become more secure following sovereign commitment. The article tests this axiom in the crucial case of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I show that despite the wide-ranging constraints imposed after the Revolution on the upper executive, the security of property rights declined. Theoretically, the article argues that the link between sovereign commitment and secure ownership hinges on vertical accountability in the state apparatus. While institutionalizing commitment by the presidency, the Revolution simultaneously exacerbated principal-agent dilemmas within the bureaucracy. Methodologically, the article contributes by triangulating available historical narratives and cross-national quantitative studies. Instead, the focus on one contemporary developing country and the use of qualitative process tracing dissects sovereign commitment and shows the mechanisms through which it can be subverted at lower administrative levels. Sixty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and government officials from six Ukrainian regions, as well as analysis of the local media, provide the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the burgeoning literature on Russia’s renewed power politics, little attention has been paid to the fact that US reactions towards Russia’s military interventions were all but coherent. The USA has chosen weak measures in Georgia in 2008 (shaming) compared to its assertive response in Ukraine in 2014 (sanctions, hard deterrence). This article assesses the explanatory power of neorealist, liberal and constructivist theories for the variation in US reactions towards Russian interventions in Georgia and Ukraine. Our argument is that the constructivist perspective explains the cases best as it highlights the power and communality of normative assessments. The Ukraine crisis was perceived by the USA as a violation of core international norms, especially the non-use of force and the principle of territorial integrity. Relevant international norm carriers shared this assessment of the conflict. In contrast, the perception of the Georgian war centred on the issue of democracy promotion. While democracy is an important aim of US foreign policy, it does not summon the same normative importance as general principles of international law. Furthermore, the perception of the Georgian war remained contested among Western allies, which decreased the communality of the normative assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is devoted to the issue of national identity and political preferences of the region of Central Ukraine. The essence of the "in-the-middle" position is tested using a national representative survey known as "Ukrainian Society" for the period of 2000-2012. Th is longitudinal survey allows for the delineation of tendencies of well-articulated political identities. This includes Galicia being compared to Crimea and Donbas. In this study these areas are compared to those of the Center, a region with an identity lacking thorough study. The specific trends in the development of a national identity and of political preferences are defined and compared within rural and urban populations in the analysed regions. The Center was chosen as a comparison to other Ukrainian regions as it characterizes the mobilization of political support in the formative years of Ukraine, commencing with the Orange Revolution in the fall of 2004. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the determinants for participation in two Ukrainian revolutions, the Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014. These revolutions were proof of the social movement that accompanies post-communist transition in an Eastern European country. This social movement, in a transitional society in the process of redefining traditional ethno-cultural identities, defined a value-rational understanding of democracy and market economy. A result of Ukrainian government action, these two revolts (which occurred less than ten years apart) have both similar and different features. The methods of binary logistic regression used in this research reveal that both protests are the result of macroregional division and the Ukrainian population’s foreign policy priorities. However, in determining participation in the Orange Revolution, these factors also combined with principles of linguistic identity, age, and status differentiation. In contrast, participation in the Revolution of Dignity was shaped by support for democratic and market values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, a new dilemma for foreign donors to human rights-related civil society organizations has arisen. In an attempt to choke off the financial networks that fund terrorism, global counterterrorism efforts, spearheaded by the United States, have led to a backlash against human rights that has increasingly taken the form of national laws designed to restrict the activities of civil society organizations (CSOs), in particular to limit foreign funding. In some cases, these laws seem to have been adopted in response to democratic social movements such as the Rose and Orange Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine respectively, as a global trend towards increasing democracy has been turned back. In other cases, they have been adopted in response to directives from international organizations like the United Nations Security Council or intergovernmental standard-setting bodies. The post-9/11 context has created an environment of potentially conflicting legal obligations and related policy choices. Providers of support for human rights-related CSOs face pressing questions of whether to operate in states that have passed such laws, and whether to comply with such restrictive laws if they do. This context has created confusion for well-intentioned states and an ideal pretext for repression for states that are eager to roll back democratic gains. This article clarifies the two most important legal questions facing donors to human rightsrelated CSOs: first, are national laws restricting the activities of CSOs, particularly limitations that affect funding, legal under international human rights law; and second, if such laws are illegal, what actions are donors entitled to take in response? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the Ukrainian crisis, its effect on the Polish­-Ukrainian political interaction and discusses topics including Polish conservatism and the Orange revolution in Ukraine in 2004.

The article consists of the author's observations while being assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. The key points covered are the cause of the EuroMaidan Revolution, protester tactics, and a summary of the situation as of May 2014. It is written first-person and without citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the war in Ukraine as an outcome of multilayered rivalry combined with unintentional mistakes committed by all possible sides. The first layer of competition concerns domestic differences visible between the Western and Eastern part of Ukraine. The second layer covers the regional rivalry between Poland and Russia, which has significantly contributed to the instability of Eastern Europe for several centuries. Finally, the third layer concerns the geopolitical game for influence between the West, led by the United States, and Russia along with several satellite states. Ukraine proved to be just another object of this competition, composed of such events as the Kosovo intervention, the Orange Revolution, the Caucasus war in 2008 and the Syrian chemical crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution initiate a peaceful democratic transition, while the 2014 protests were followed by violent conflict? This article complements previous studies on Russia’s role in Ukraine by focusing on domestic explanations of the recent violence. It shows that structural factors were already conducive to violence in 2004, making it fruitful to analyse the role of agency to explain the 2014 conflict. It demonstrates that while the 2004 transition introduced power-sharing guarantees that mitigated commitment problems for the relevant parties, the 2014 transition saw no such guarantees, making violence a rational strategy for the pro-Russian separatists. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The diversification of allegiances with several more powerful states is seen as a way for minor actors to improve their strategic position in the international system. The result, however, could become less than desirable when these relations are both essential and contradictory. This article intends to examine the challenges for Transnistrian foreign policy through the concepts of bandwagoning and balancing. It uses alternative neorealist perspectives to identify various types of alignment and then examines how this landlocked territorial entity attempts to use relations with Russia and Ukraine to protect its statehood and identity in the context of the ongoing threat from Moldova. This article identifies that twice in the last decade (after the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan), the strategy of ‘dual alignment’ failed. It claims that recent attempts by both the EU and Ukraine to weaken Russia’s position in the region by isolating Transnistria has led to a further strengthening of ties between this actor and Moscow. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the space of 24 years, Ukraine has experienced three ‘revolutions’: the revolution for independence, the ‘Orange Revolution’ and the ‘Dignity Revolution’. On each occasion the event has been lauded as a triumph of democracy over authoritarianism and as evidence that Ukraine will soon be able to assume its rightful place as a free, democratic state in Europe. On two out of three occasions the reverse has occurred; while the people have taken to the streets to protest against flagrant corruption and abuse of power, the oligarchs have responded with only minor changes to the political system. The reins of political and economic power have remained firmly in their hands, and Ukraine’s prospects for political and economic development have deteriorated. The Dignity Revolution of 2014 is seen as different from preceding revolutions because civil society appeared to be much more active and it has succeeded, in part, in maintaining pressure on government for reform. It is important to understand, however, that despite periodic and dramatic demonstrations of outrage over the corrupt and authoritarian practices of the political elites, civil society has generally been classed as apathetic, weak and ineffectual. Thus, the current challenge for Ukrainian civil society is to overcome its own limitations so that it can better hold government to account. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article provides insight into the involvement of the European Parliament in the EU-Ukraine relations for the 1991-2004 period. The article argues that the European Parliament proved to be capable of developing and actively promoting its specific "European values" agenda. It demonstrated the ability to maintain the multi-level influence on the relations with the target country by both direct and indirect means. Its involvement into the EU-Ukraine relations was one of the factors which led to the change of Ukraine's development paradigm, marked by the increasing influence of the civil society on the political system. However, the limited number of EU incentives as well as the rigidity of the conditionality patterns application decreased the potential benefits for the bilateral relations. Moreover, the fallacious assumption that the conditionality patterns which were successful for the CEE countries would also be successful for post-Soviet countries became one of the factors that facilitated the split of the Ukrainian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the competitiveness of the European Union (EU) and Russia's regime preferences in their foreign policies towards Ukraine in the scope of the on-going Ukraine crisis. It is argued that the underpinning geopolitical environment Ukraine currently resides in, wedged between two much larger powers (the EU and Russia), renders it a vulnerable target state for regime promotion from both sides. Indeed, since the 2004 Orange revolution in Ukraine, both the EU and Russia have had discernible regime promotion strategies in their foreign policies. The EU's regime promotion has focussed on facilitating democracy in Ukraine, along with more material interests (trade and strategic aims) while Russia has reacted with increasingly zero-sum policies which pursue its preference for having a loyal and Russian-facing regime in Ukraine. Ultimately, the increasing competitiveness of the EU and Russia has been a key factor in the onset of the Ukraine crisis, which offers important insight into the relationship between large powers and the smaller third states which lie in their overlapping spheres of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the immediate threat recedes, the oligarchs who once personally financed Ukraine's defence seem to be trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers how a community that supports self-rule takes shape in movements for self-determination. Examining separatism in east Ukraine, the author suggests that the formation of community boundaries is not automatic. Boundaries are not activated by pre-existing ethnic or linguistic identities, or even by the appeals of political leaders who manipulate those identities. Instead, analysts should focus attention on how specific political developments contribute to alienation from the central state. Two factors contributed to political alienation in Ukraine: first, the material interest of industrial workers in preserving economic ties to Russia, and second, how nostalgia for the Soviet Union was strengthened by developments following the Orange Revolution and after the Maidan that emphasized an ethnically exclusivist Ukrainian national identity and gave voice to the ultranationalist far right in national politics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Political protests which took place in Ukraine were another example ot how social and content websites were used during protests on the Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in Kiev - the protests started in November 2013 and ended in February 2014. This article offers presentation of the results of research that was carried out in Kiev and Lviv in May 2015 among students of two Ukrainian universities: Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University and the National University of Taras Shevchenko in Lviv. The aim of the conducted research was to establish which of the new media (social media and blogs) and in what way were used by the students during protests and if the way of using the new media influenced the engagement of students in protests. Such comparative research also made it possible to find differences in attitudes and motivations of students participating in protests in Kiev but coming from two different cities in Ukraine - Kiev and Lviv. The research results may contribute to a deepened analysis of the ways the new media are used during political and social protests with reference to differences in people's attitudes depending on their personal or Internet engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]