The battle of states is transformed into a battle of nations

Depending on the destructiveness and depth of penetration into the social "body" of society, wars can be classified into elite, interstate and nations’.

There are quick wars, when society does not have time to realize what is happening. There are wars that are waged by states, but they do not cause general social bitterness (the US war in Vietnam or Iraq, for example). And there are wars of an existential and ethnocide nature, when there is a war not just between states, but a total war between societies and nations. Like the Second World War (which became “Patriotic” for many peoples and nations in Europe), the Balkan Wars of the 90s of the last century.

The war in Ukraine is dragging on, and we may be in a transitional stage, from a war between states (“special operation”) to an all-out war between peoples (Patriotic War).

The war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine - the passionate-ethnic-national-Ukrainian and passionate-Russian-imperial parts of society is gradually penetrating deeper and deeper into the tissues of the entire Ukrainian and Russian people. Due to the committed war crimes, large casualties and the deterioration of social living conditions.

Indeed, this war can transform into a war between societies - into a classic war between Ukrainians and Russians (in the broad civilian sense of the word). This type of war, of a genocidal nature, has already been in Ukrainian history during the time of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and its war with the Muscovite kingdom.

This carries the threat of more brutal cleansing and destruction of the civilian population, more brutal tools to suppress the linguistic, cultural and religious identity of the loser (except for political sovereignty).

The war between states, transforming into a war between nations, eventually leads to the fact that the victorious nation cleans up humiliates, tries to erase the defeated nation in the occupied territories into dust.

This is a huge problem that makes this war not only very long and very bloody, totally destructive, but also makes it historic, creates enmity between nations for centuries.

The internationalization of war only reinforces this trend.

Ruslan Bortnik