Middle East countries towards Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022. The position of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran

The Middle East is particularly vulnerable to armed conflicts and other acts of aggression due to its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity. The war in Ukraine poses a political and economic challenge to the Middle East states, as follows from various diplomatic relations between them and the Russian Federation and Ukraine. After February 24, 2022, the leaders and governments of the Middle East countries issued a series of statements in which they tried to express their position on the declaration of independence of the separatist Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and the invasion of Ukraine. Among the countries of the Middle East that have expressed their position on the armed conflict in Ukraine, it is particularly worth paying attention to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran. These three states constitute the largest political, economic and military forces in the region and a different approach to relations with the Russian Federation as the main factor shaping their position on the armed conflict in Europe

This paper aims to analyze selected mechanisms accompanying the processes of national revival in the Central Asian republics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The idea is to investigate the authorities’ actions, which legitimized themselves by appealing to national issues and controlling the processes of building national consciousness. The paper also covers the changes in the nationalist narrative in Kazakhstan in the context of the war in Ukraine, showing the tensions over national identities and loyalties. Some Kazakhs supported Russian aggression against Ukraine, to the great disappointment of national patriots, which has sparked a debate about how the “us” vs. “them” division should be understood in the face of war and a possible threat from Russia. Some participants in the debate question the reliability of equating national identity with loyalty to the state. In doing so, they challenge the government’s primordial narrative, in which nationality legitimizes or naturalizes the current configuration of political power.

Despite the distance, Ukraine and Taiwan share parallels in the domain of geopolitical struggle and identity issues. Both are experiencing an ongoing process of national identity strengthening and redefinition. External factors, such as Russia’s 2014 occupation of Crimea and the subsequent 2022 invasion of Ukraine and China’s increasing pressure on Taiwan, have shaped both Ukrainian and Taiwanese identities and people’s attitudes. On the one hand, this paper explores the transformation of Ukrainian identity in the wake of Russian aggression, focusing on how the invasion has influenced the strengthening of civic attachment among Ukrainians. On the other hand, we explore the development of Taiwanese identity in the context of growing distinctions from mainland China, primarily focusing on Taiwan’s ongoing democratization process and developing a self-confident national identity distinct from the mainland. The rise of Taiwanese identity coincided with growing sympathy for Taiwan’s independence. Additionally, we consider the evolving nature of civic and national identities, emphasizing their fluidity and adaptability in response to political and social complexity.

This paper explores the discourse of the Russia-Ukraine war to outline the dominant narrative schemas anchored in the spatial geopolitical representations of globalness and localness. It uses tools from the domains of critical cognitive discourse studies and narrative research (alternative futures, discourse scenarios, deictic space, proximization) to distinguish between two most salient schemas: the Global Conflict Schema GCS narrative and the Local Conflict Schema LCS narrative. The GCS narrative conceptualizes the Russia-Ukraine war as a growing international conflict, producing serious political, economic and material consequences for the global community. GCS uses coercive rhetoric to call for immediate measures to support Ukraine so the war can be stopped before spreading beyond its current borders. The principal narrator of GCS is Ukraine, though the narrative is recontextualized in other countries located in geographical proximity to the conflict. The LCS narrative, performed mostly by the Kremlin, construes the war as a local conflict providing no reasons for foreign intervention. LCS is distinctive for its large number of sub-narratives appropriated for different geopolitical audiences, which include the Russian and Ukrainian people, and different audience groups in the West and the Global South. The latter groups re-contextualize the LCS narrative, focusing primarily on economic issues.