The long-running ‘disagreement’ between Ukraine and Russia can be explained in many ways, not the least being that they were fundamentally the main economic bookends of the former Soviet Union. Moreover, culturally they are mirrors of one another. Remember, Russia annexed Crimea back in 2017, well in advance of the conflict of 2022, but with Ukraine under a new, younger president 2022, Ukraine was not going to take more aggression from Russia. Based on Dr. Geert Hofstede’s Six Dimensions of cultural dimensions theory shows just how mirrored the two countries are on the dimensions – power distance, individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs femininity, long-term vs short-term orientation, indulgence vs restraint. Take a look at this graph from Hofstede-Insights. Russia is the blue bar, Ukraine is the purple bar, and for comparison, the US is the green bar. See how similar culturally Russia and Ukraine are even 30 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union
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image001.png@01D8DE42.F101BB60” src=”https://blog.mydaye.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/image001.png” style=”width: 6.4583in; height: 2.6041in; max-width: 100%;”>
https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/russia,ukraine,the-usa/
As I remarked to someone recently, Mr. Vladimir Putin is old enough to remember the wonderful Soviet Union because he was so rich and powerful unlike most of his fellow countrymen of the time. He wants to return to that but anyone under 20 has no relation to that world and wants nothing to do with it; the young president of Ukraine does not remember the great old Soviet Union and he does not want to return to those times. Unlike his predecessor, he does not want to surrender parts of his country to Russia so I think this ‘disagreement’ continues for quite a bit longer – at least until it spills over into some of the other former Soviet Union states – say Belarus.
