Reasons why Ukrainians Continue or Stop Interacting with Russian Culture as a Result of a Russian-Ukrainian War

Abstract

The Russian-Ukrainian war is a global critical event that impacted a variety of nations, but Ukrainians have surely suffered the most. A number of Russian celebrities have openly supported the war and the politics of President Putin. Nevertheless, despite the cruelty of the enemy, the destruction of the infrastructure, and the deaths of military personnel and civilians, many Ukrainians still continue to interact with Russian culture in a variety of ways. The major aim of the presented study was to identify the reasons why Ukrainians maintain contact or stop it and the types of culture that interaction is continued with. We have outlined four major factors that could impact the decision to interact or stop interacting: socio-demographic, psychological, emotional, and situational or forced interaction (interaction out of need). The results have shown that spoken language is a clear predictor of the continuation or termination of the interaction: Russian-speaking Ukrainians tend to continue interaction; the majority of Ukrainians continue interaction mainly due to the absence of Ukrainian analogues of similar cultural products and/or types; most Ukrainians keep interacting with bloggers and musicians; the position of the artist regarding the war defines the intentions to continue interaction; extraverted Ukrainians continue interaction but eventually tend to stop it, while more open Ukrainians stopped at the beginning of the war but tend to continue in the future; the majority of Ukrainians continue interaction due to an emotional need and stop it due to their emotional unacceptance of anything Russian-related.

Functional Disability, Health Care Access, and Mental Health in Ukrainians Displaced by the 2022 Russian Invasion

“…It is interesting to note that we find Russian speakers are a greater risk of poor sleep quality. This is in line with previous research finding lower levels of resilience in this population (Goodwin et al, 2023) and may also be related to the strengthening of the Ukrainian identity (and therefore of the Ukrainian language) that has taken place in recent years owing to hostilities since 2014 (Arel, 2018; Chayinska et al, 2022; Eras, 2023; Kurapov et al, 2022).…”

“…It is interesting to note that we find Russian speakers are a greater risk of poor sleep quality. This is in line with previous research finding lower levels of resilience in this population (Goodwin et al, 2023), and may also be related to the strengthening of the Ukrainian identity (and therefore of the Ukrainian language) that has taken place in recent years owing to hostilities since 2014 (Arel, 2018; Chayinska et al, 2022; Eras, 2023; Kurapov et al, 2022). Indeed, these difficulties may extend beyond even immediate exposure, because as the psychotherapist Galina Itskovich observed in her patient, notifications of attacks can be transmitted to the mobile phones of Ukrainians even outside of the country.…”

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“…However, the largest volume of research literature is devoted to the issues of mental well-being associated with war, military conflicts, or crises. The results of studies by different authors can be distilled into the idea that the mental health of society deteriorates significantly during a war and in the post-war period, being mainly expressed in the decreased level of general life satisfaction (Cheung et al, 2020), the increase in levels of addiction to psychoactive substances (Pavlenko et al, 2022), the worsening of psychoemotional states (Kurapov et al, 2022c), increased psychological stress (Osiichuk & Shepotylo, 2020), the increase in the number of mental disorders (Barchielli et al, 2022;Mohd Saleem et al, 2021;Rizkalla & Segal, 2018), and various communication problems (Kurapov et al, 2022b). The prevailing mental health issue during the post-war period is prost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).…”