The war that Russia unleashed in Ukraine nearly three years ago is rightly recognized as one of the greatest crimes of the 21st century. Understandably, little attention has been paid to the impact of the conflict on Ukraine’s international image. Yet, amid the trauma and horror of Russia’s invasion, there are growing signs that the unprecedented media attention to Ukraine since 2022 is gradually helping to transform the world’s perception of the country. As a result, Ukraine is finally emerging from a long period of international obscurity that has hampered the country’s progress for centuries.
International ignorance about Ukraine was a feature long before the country gained independence in 1991. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, little has been done to address this lack of external awareness or to strengthen Ukraine’s national brand on the world stage. This reticence helped pave the way for Russia’s disinformation efforts, with foreign audiences often willing to believe all sorts of outlandish lies about a country that was otherwise unknown to them. With the recent media attention to Ukraine, Kremlin propagandists are now finding that their distortions are not so easily accepted. This is an ongoing process, but it is already possible to identify a number of important facts about Ukraine that have become ingrained in the international consciousness since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
1. Ukraine is not Russia
The fact that Ukraine is not Russia may seem offensively obvious from a Ukrainian perspective, but it was in fact the fundamental image problem the country faced in 2022. Indeed, it was no coincidence that on the eve of a full-scale invasion, Vladimir Putin published an entire essay denying the legitimacy of a separate Ukrainian state on the grounds that Ukrainians were in fact Russians (“one people”).
Putin did not create this narrative of Ukraine denial. His predecessors insisted that Ukraine had been an integral part of Russia since at least the eighteenth century, and ruthlessly manipulated the historical record to bolster their arguments. Throughout the Tsarist and Soviet eras, anyone who tried to counter this Great Russian narrative or highlight Ukraine’s long struggle for statehood was considered a dangerous heretic, subject to the harshest punishment.
For generations, Russia had been able to impose its imperial propaganda on an international audience, silencing Ukrainians and misleading Ukraine as an integral part of Russia’s own historical depths. So it was understandable that when an independent Ukraine appeared on the map in 1991, many found it difficult to distinguish it from Russia. This created much confusion and, to some extent, legitimized Russia’s subsequent attempts to reassert its authority over Ukraine.
The full-scale invasion changed all that. Since February 2022, international perceptions of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine have undergone a radical transformation, as global audiences have witnessed the ferocity of the Russian assault and the resolve of Ukraine’s national defense. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin has killed hundreds of thousands and ruined millions; it has also laid to rest the Kremlin’s myth of Russians and Ukrainians as “one people.” As the invasion approaches its three-year mark, it is now safe to say that anyone who continues to insist that Russia and Ukraine are indivisible is either acting in bad faith or is so stunningly ignorant that their opinions can be disregarded.
2. Ukraine is huge
The low international status of pre-war Ukraine led many to view the country as an obscure and insignificant state whose fate mattered little to the rest of the world. Yet very few seemed to realize that Ukraine was, in fact, the largest country in Europe. That is no longer the case. Over the past three years, the map of Ukraine has featured relentlessly in the international press. Even casual observers have grown accustomed to the country's outlines and cannot help but notice how large it is relative to its European neighbors.
Media coverage of events on the battlefield has also helped to highlight Ukraine’s vast size. Despite regular war reports of major offensives and record successes, the overall picture of the front lines has changed little since the first year of the war, underscoring Ukraine’s comparative vastness. Although Ukraine may still seem small compared to Russia, it is a huge country by European standards. A growing understanding of this fact helps shape perceptions of Ukraine’s geopolitical importance.
3. Ukraine is an agricultural superpower
Until 2022, Ukraine was probably best known to many around the world as the site of the Chernobyl disaster. The association with the world’s worst nuclear accident was especially unfortunate, since Ukraine is anything but a radioactive wasteland. In fact, the country’s true claim to fame is being the breadbasket of Europe. Ukraine’s legendary black soil is some of the most fertile land in the entire world, making much of the country a giant garden of agricultural abundance.
Since 2022, Russia’s intervention has helped inform international audiences of Ukraine’s critical role in global food security. Widespread media coverage of Russia’s naval blockade of the Black Sea has highlighted the importance of Ukraine’s agricultural exports, and the disruptions caused by Moscow’s intervention have led to fears of famine in Africa and rising prices for staple foods across the West. Growing awareness of Ukraine’s status as an agricultural superpower has undermined the Kremlin’s efforts to portray the ongoing invasion as a purely local matter and mobilized international opposition to the war.
4. Ukraine is a center of innovation
For decades, international perceptions of Ukraine have been marred by lazy cliches that portray the country as a terminally corrupt backwater on the vodka-soaked fringes of Eastern Europe. These deeply unflattering caricatures of Ukrainian stagnation have always been misleading. Now, they are also hopelessly outdated. Since 2022, Ukraine has demonstrated that it is a sophisticated, high-tech country capable of not only holding its own in the most technologically advanced war the world has ever seen, but also of being able to fight its own domestically produced weapons systems on an almost daily basis.
Ukrainian defense technology companies have been responsible for a number of particularly innovative battlefield solutions that have caught the attention of global defense industry giants and helped Ukraine level the playing field against the country’s much larger and wealthier enemy. For example, innovative Ukrainian naval drones turned the tide of the Battle of the Black Sea and forced Russia’s entire fleet to retreat from Crimea, while Ukrainian long-range drones regularly strike targets deep inside Russia. As a result, “Made in Ukraine” is now recognized as a quality mark throughout the international security sector. This image transformation is already attracting international investors and will shape Ukraine’s economic development for decades to come, as the country’s defense industry and broader technology sector will be in high demand.
5. Ukraine is united
The full-scale invasion has seriously undermined Russia’s decades-long effort to portray Ukraine as a country irrevocably divided along geographic and ideological lines. The narrative of a divided Ukraine has been a mainstay of Kremlin propaganda since Soviet times and has been central to the disinformation that has accompanied Russia’s escalating aggression over the past two decades. For years, this gross simplification of Ukraine’s regional complexities appeared superficially convincing to international audiences, but it has been decisively debunked by Ukraine’s unified response to Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainians across the country overwhelmingly opposed the Russian invasion, and residents of supposedly “pro-Russian” cities like Odessa and Kharkiv demonstrated no less determination to defend themselves and their homes. Of course, this does not mean that regional diversity is no longer a feature of today’s Ukraine. On the contrary, Ukraine remains as prone to regional differences as any other major European country. But the Russian invasion has shattered the myth of a permanently divided Ukraine and proved beyond reasonable doubt that the vast majority of Ukrainians are staunchly opposed to the idea of reunification with Russia.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert service.
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