Ukraine at War: Resilience and Normative Agency

Abstract

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has transformed all aspects of life in the country, including societal attitudes, national politics and Ukraine’s agency on the international arena. The article seeks to discuss and conceptualise how practices of resilience create discursive spaces for producing and shaping Ukraine’s agency. In other words, how do experiences of resilience in four different spheres (societal, institutional, communicative and subregional) affect Ukraine’s capacity not only to cope with the intervention and survive as a nation, but also to contribute to the future of international security order. The author argues that by containing the Russian army, Ukraine can be viewed as a co-producer of European security, which is particularly acknowledged by European countries bordering on Russia. Ukraine’s agency, as unfolded in 2022, addresses Western countries with an insistent demand to perceive Ukraine as a part of the European normative order.