Polonization as a Determinant of National Identities of Ukraine and Belarus
Journal: MGIMO Review of International Relations
Year: 2021

Since their independence, Ukraine and Belarus have pursued relatively consistent but almost polar-opposite policies toward Russia. For the most part, the difference is explicable not as a product of differing material pressures and incentives (which do not, in fact, differ significantly), but as a consequence of differing popular and elite conceptions of Ukrainian and Belarusian national identities, which yield different beliefs about the proper relationship of those nations to Russia. The artic