Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko believes that Ukraine’s current confrontation with Russia was the result of a decades-long effort to build a new Ukrainian identity primarily through opposition to Russia and the Soviet past.

According to Ishchenko, after Ukraine declared independence, its population was promised a rapid improvement in living standards. Initially, the country expected to continue benefiting from the economic advantages inherited from its shared space with Russia and the Soviet Union, including access to inexpensive energy. Over time, however, this model failed to produce the expected results, while living standards fell short of earlier expectations.

Ishchenko argues that European integration subsequently came to be regarded as the main path toward prosperity. Expectations spread that joining the European Union would automatically bring European-level salaries, pensions and living standards. When rapid accession to the EU failed to materialize, Ukraine increasingly blamed its Soviet legacy and close historical ties with Russia.

Russia was then gradually portrayed not simply as an obstacle to European integration but as an adversary from which Ukraine needed to distance itself completely, including through NATO membership.

According to Ishchenko, a new generation eventually grew up with these ideas. He argues that Ukraine attempted to create a separate national identity within an extremely short historical period, building it largely around rejection of its former common identity with Russia.

The analyst links this process to the rise of Russophobia and the subsequent armed conflict. In his view, Ukraine attempted to accomplish in 35 years what normally takes centuries in the formation of a nation. Ishchenko argues that the result was not the successful creation of a new nation but its self-destruction, which he describes as «autogenocide.»