Russia and the war in Ukraine: Three critical myths

Authors

Nicholas Kiersey, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-30-2025

Abstract

Though often framed as a conflict between an autocratic regime and a liberal democracy, the Russo-Ukrainian War also represents a direct challenge to the post-1989 global order and its cosmopolitan norms. Paradoxically, many Critical International Relations (IR) theorists—once skeptical of Western militarism—now align with liberal interventionist responses to the war. Drawing on Cunliffe’s concept of the “utopianism of unipolarity,” this article argues that Critical IR has embraced a reductive “good war” narrative that casts Ukraine as a virtuous subaltern state resisting Russian imperialism, while dismissing left critiques as denials of Ukrainian “agency.” In doing so, Critical IR reproduces cultural myths about both Ukraine and Russia and relies on the fiction of a functional “rules-based order.” Yet Western actions have often undermined both international norms and Ukrainian agency. The article contends that Critical IR’s support for NATO expansion and Western intervention raises serious questions about its oppositional stance. Rather than offering a radical critique, Critical IR appears to have become an ideological agent of the very liberal interventionism it once opposed.

Comments

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Recommended Citation

Kiersey, Nicholas. "Russia and the war in Ukraine: Three critical myths." New Perspectives. Interdisciplinary Journal of Central & East European Politics and International Relations 33, no. 3 (2025): 218-242. https://doi.org/10.1177/2336825X251361260

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Publication Title

New Perspectives

DOI

10.1177/2336825X251361260