The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict

Abstract

The extant theory of ethnic defection rests on the importance of ethnic identity shift and loyalism toward the regime, which were thus far presented as key explanations of side switching in ethnic conflicts. This article challenges the validity of these claims and proposes an alternative theoretical argument. This study argues that individuals mobilize against their coethnics on the side of government that explicitly challenges and opposes ethnonationalist aspirations of their own ethnic group due to perceived obligation of ethnic responsibility to protect their ethnic values. Ethnic defection is likely to occur when and if the rebels are suspected by their coethnics of violating or disregarding sociocultural, ideological, or religious values of their ethnic group. Third-party prorebel intervention is likely to further aggravate or even trigger ethnic defection. This argument is examined empirically in the case of progovernment mobilization during East Ukraine conflict in 2014 to 2015. Microlevel interview data from Ukraine demonstrate that Ukrainian Russian speakers mobilized for the government side, driven by the strong sense of ethnic responsibility, engendered in the perception that separatists misrepresent ethnic values of Ukraine’s Russian speakers.

Keywords

ethnic defection Ukraine civil war ethnic conflict

Introduction

In August 2006, Sheikh Abdul Sittar of Albu Risha Sunni tribe pledged his support to the U.S. forces in Ramadi, Iraq. In less than 2-month period, more than 1,500 tribal fighters flocked into the local police training center, which, since the arrival of Americans in 2003, only managed to recruit 150 locals (Kukis, 2006).

These new recruits were the first wave of Sunni combatants voluntarily mobilized to fight against fellow Sunni Al-Qaeda insurgents in Anbar province. The Ramadi tribal volunteers, who later became part of a larger Sunni anti–Al-Qaeda force “Sons of Iraq” (Abna al-Iraq), were neither first nor the last ethnic defectors in contemporary armed conflicts. Although the practice of mobilizing against coethnics dates back to antiquity, research on ethnic defection remains limited to a small group of studies. It is the seminal article by Stathis N. Kalyvas (2008) on ethnic defection that has invigorated the debate on side switching in intrastate conflicts. Defined as “a process whereby individuals join organizations explicitly opposed to the national aspirations of the ethnic group with which they identify and end up fighting against their coethnics” (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 1045), ethnic defection occurs in many contemporary ethnic conflicts. Scholars associated the emergence of ethnic defectors with dynamics of counterinsurgency (Lyall, 2010), internal processes within insurgent organizations (Staniland, 2012), or patterns of double defection (Souleimanov et al., 2018). Notwithstanding the significance of ethnic defection in intrastate conflicts, the process of ethnic side switching remains rather underexplored and poorly understood. As observed by Lyall (2010), “theoretical discussions of rebel defection are curiously few in the existing literature” (p. 16). A number of fundamental questions remain unanswered about the processes, which lead individuals to supporting “competitor” ethnic groups. What other factors, besides loyalty to a regime and material incentives, are responsible for ethnic defection? Why does mass ethnic defection occur even in conflicts lacking identity shift and with limited state capacity to sponsor defectors?

To explain the global occurrence of ethnic defection across a variety of intrastate armed conflicts, this study advances the theory of ethnic responsibility, which posits that individuals join “competitor” ethnic groups to fight against their coethnics driven by the obligation to protect their perceived ethnic values. Ethnic values are sociocultural, ideological, and religious principles and ethics peculiar to a particular ethnic group. Ethnic responsibility is engendered in an intrinsic obligation to protect ethnic values from perceived intragroup threats, which may include disregard for ethnic traditions, organizational structures, religious beliefs, or collaboration with external actors. The logic of ethnic responsibility rests on an assumption that ethnic rebels always remain at risk of alienating their coethnics, who might perceive their actions as contradictory to ethnic values, and, as a result, collaborate with the incumbent. Differences in interpretation of ethnic values—cultural, ideological, religious, and customary perceptions—pitch coethnics against each other, justifying and facilitating ethnic defection. The emergence of ethnic responsibility is often triggered by external prorebel ideological or military intervention. It is also embedded in inherent material motivations associated with mobilization for a state actor.

This theoretical claim is tested empirically on the case study of ethnic defection among Russian-speaking progovernment volunteers in East Ukraine’s conflict. The empirical data derive from 86 in-depth interviews with former and active progovernment combatants from ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking communities. Findings demonstrate that Russian speakers from eastern, southern, and central Ukraine, who mobilized en mass into progovernment armed forces, were heavily influenced by the collective perception that pro-Russian separatists are misrepresenting ethnic Russian values. As members of their ethnic Russian community, recruits associated pro-Russian uprising in the East Ukraine with external ideological and military intervention.

This article proceeds as follows. Thе study begins with a critical analysis of armed conflict in Ukraine’s Donbas region that emphasizes ethnolinguistic complexity of post-Soviet Ukraine. This section is followed by theoretical discussion of ethnic responsibility. Section “Method and Data” describes the data and research methods. The second part of the article consists of empirical discussion of East Ukraine’s ethnic defection. The article concludes by drawing connections between the theoretical claim and empirical findings, and summarizing prospects for future research and practice.

East Ukraine: Anatomy of an Ethnic Conflict

In 2014 to 2015, Ukraine experienced a series of unprecedented political and economic shocks. The Euromaidan protests leading to the violent overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovich, annexation of Crimean Peninsula by Russia, and election of pro-Western government in Kiev, all culminated with large-scale armed conflict between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists in self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR) in eastern Donbas region. Since the first months of the East Ukraine conflict, scholars and analysts alike associated violence in Donbas with identity politics, such as historical Ukrainian East–West divide, and ethnic grievances between Ukrainians and ethnic Russians in Donbas (Klinova, 2014; Kudelia, 2014; Petro, 2015). These claims were challenged by the proponents of economic causes, who argued that Donbas’s lucrative coal and metal industry, and the access to resources have fuelled the conflict (Giuliano, 2015; Zhukov, 2016). Russian intervention was further cited as decisive toward conflict entrenchment and continuity (Wilson, 2016). Another strand of literature that has emerged in the aftermath of Ukraine’s conflict is research on the relationship between language, ethnic identity, and support for separatism (Arel, 2018; Sasse & Lackner, 2018). Although many have observed the complexity of ethnic identity and language matters in the Ukrainian context (Kulyk, 2018), few efforts were made to explore links between ethnicity and wartime mobilization on both sides of the dyad (Zhukov, 2016). Yet, it is due to the complexity of ethnic aspects in Ukraine that armed conflict in Donbas offers unique perspectives into understanding an ethnic conflict.

First, let us look into the broader aspect of ethnicity in present-day Ukraine. One particular caveat that scholars of ethnic grievances often disregard is that, in Ukraine’s ethnic identity and corresponding ethnicity, values are defined not in accordance with the belonging to an ethnic group, but as based on first-language preferences. In their recent study, Onuch and Hale (2018) argue that in the context of Ukraine, ethnicity and language preferences do not necessarily overlap. A similar finding was presented by Ivanov (2015), who described that the choice of language is far more significant for Ukrainians than their ethnic identity. Due to decades of Sovietization and Russification under the Soviet rule, ethnic identities collapsed and merged. In the words of Kulyk (2018), Ukraine “inherited a very large number of people who considered themselves Russians by nationality and an even larger number of those who retained their ethnonational self-designation as Ukrainians but spoke Russian as their main language of everyday life” (p. 120).

Notwithstanding popular claims that there are three major ethnic groups in present-day Ukraine, “Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians,” “Russian-speaking Ukrainians,” and “Russians” (Miller, 1994, p. 1), there is plentiful evidence that “Russian-speaking” Ukrainians largely identify themselves as both Russians and Ukrainians (Pirie, 1996, p. 1080). Drawing on survey findings, Riabchuk (2015) observes that “only plurality of Ukrainians identified themselves primarily with Ukraine, whereas most of them defined their primary loyalties as either local, regional, residual Soviet, or supranational East Slavonic” (p. 145). In the same vein, Gentile (2015) concludes that based on survey findings, “[W]ith the exception of Crimea, most Russian-speakers in Ukraine identify as Russian-speaking Ukrainians, not as Russians” (p. 202). The same rule applied to pre-2014 Donbas, where, as explained by Gentile (2015), “Russian is the language spoken by the overwhelming majority of the population, but over 60% identify as Ukrainians” (p. 202). This ethnolinguistic mismatch is best explained by Brubaker’s (2004) theory of ethnicity without clearly delineated ethnic groups, which posits that homogeneous ethnic groups with clear-cut identification and linguistic boundaries are hard to find anywhere in the world.

It is noteworthy from recent survey data that even the process of Ukrainianness that has been unleashed by the post-Maidan government to replace Russian language with Ukrainian in all spheres of life has not been particularly effective in convincing Russian-speaking Ukrainians to switch to using exclusively Ukrainian language. Thus, Pop-Eleches and Robertson (2018) found, in their survey-based study, that although numbers of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers have not changed in pre- and post-Maidan Ukraine, they observed notable increase in the perception of Ukraine as homeland (p. 116). This indicates that instead of changing their ethnic identities and values, Russian speakers become better integrated into their country of citizenship.

The East Ukraine conflict, which is often described as a war between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians (Sakwa, 2014), is in fact conflict where the majority of participants are either Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians or Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Representatives of the latter, depending on which side of the frontline they are, identify themselves as either Russians or Ukrainians. Nevertheless, it is a well-established and widely reported fact that Russian speakers are participating in the armed conflict on both sides. A mounting evidence of Russian speakers involved in the conflict on the Ukrainian side began to emerge soon after the escalation of East Ukraine conflict in April to May 2014. As pointed by Riabchuk (2015), “Moscow encountered a fierce resistance of Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions largely completed with the same proverbial ‘Russians and Russophones’” (p. 148). Arel (2018) observed that “Russian is still fairly prevalent socially, including at the frontlines (many, if not most, battalions operate in Russian)” (p. 3). A similar observation was made by Zhukov (2016), who describes that “Russian has been the language of command in many units of the Ukrainian armed forces, and even in some ultra-nationalist Ukrainian volunteer battalions like ‘Azov’” (p. 4). Indeed, one of the largest paramilitary battalions “Donbas” was formed from Russian speakers mainly from eastern Ukraine and from the war-affected region of Donbas. Two other powerful ultra-nationalist battalions “Azov” and “Right Sector” also have large numbers of Russian speakers in their ranks (Abramovich, 2014; Praviy Sektor, 2014; Schwetz, 2014). It has been reported that a significant proportion of fighters in the “Right Sector” are from eastern and southern Ukraine (Tsibenko, 2014; Vadjra, 2016). There are numerous Russian speakers not only among rank-and-file combatants in pro-Ukrainian forces but also at the command level. For instance, the founder and commander of “Azov” battalion, Andriy Biletsky, is a Russian speaker from the eastern city of Kharkiv, and the commander of “Donbas” battalion is an ethnic Russian from Donetsk. In Zhukov’s (2016) words, “The Facebook page of Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov—where he issues official press releases on operations by the National Guard—is in Russian” (p. 4). Progovernment paramilitary battalions, the National Guard, and Special Forces of the Ministry of Interior (MVD) compose the bulk of Ukrainian armed forces involved in counterinsurgency operation (Anti-Terrorist Operation—ATO) in Donbas region. Remarkably all these units are dominated by Russian speakers from eastern, southern, and (less so) central parts of Ukraine, rather than by Ukrainian speakers from western regions. This suggests that Russian speakers bore the brunt of fighting during the active phase of East Ukraine conflict from April 2014 to March 2015.

All the above raises a question as to why Ukraine’s Russian speakers volunteered en masse to fight against fellow Russian speakers from DNR and LNR? Why the call from separatists to rise against Ukraine’s government and its efforts to de-Russify the country has backfired, drawing thousands of Russian speakers to join the government against the rebels? Among many other post–Cold War intrastate conflicts, East Ukraine war is a unique case of massive ethnic defection, which has occurred regardless of the lack of state capacity to enforce or induce defection, to use coercive force, or even to facilitate effective identity-shift processes. The following theoretical sections will seek to offer answers to this puzzle, which will then be empirically examined in the second half of the article.

Theorizing Ethnic Defection

The fundamental principle of ethnic defection is transformation of identity, which enables individuals to acquire “a new ethnic (or national) identity that replaces the old one” (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 1045). The acquisition of new identity facilitates individuals to mobilize in support of an ethnic group(s), which opposes ethnonationalist aspirations of their own ethnicity. However, there are two intrinsic problems with the relationship between identity shift and ethnic defection. First, for identity shift to take place, individuals need to be able to strongly identify themselves with an ethnic group. Second, it may not be necessary to change ethnic identity to switch sides in an ethnic conflict.

To start with, identity shift is only likely to occur when the conflict involves two or more ethnic groups with clearly defined ethnic identities. Bearing in mind that identity shift is a process of acquiring new ethnic identity, it only becomes possible if an individual already has a fully formed ethnonationalist identity. For individuals lacking clear-cut ethnic identification, participation in violent conflict on the side of a “competitor” ethnic group may not require identity shift and may not even involve identity-building processes. In the absence of fully formed ethnic identity, joining an armed organization in opposition to individual’s own ethnic group may not be seen as defection or betrayal. Rather, participation in an ethnonationalist conflict on the incumbent’s side might be perceived as an “ethnic duty” to restore peace and stability. For example, joining Spanish security forces in their fight against Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) was seen by many Basque recruits as part of their ethnic responsibility to restore law and order in the Basque country (Sullivan, 2015). In a similar vein, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militias in Sri Lanka were motivated—among other reasons—by ethnic responsibility (Stokke, 2006).

Ethnic groups with weak ethnic identification may choose to support their coethnics’ opponents without having to embrace national values of another ethnic group. They may simply align their loyalty to the actor who they consider represents their aspirations more efficiently, even if that actor belongs to an opposing ethnic group. Ethnic defection without identity shift may also occur in mixed ethnicity groups, where preference for stronger actor, or more powerful ethnic group may prevail. Even in monoethnic groups with the experience of large-scale ethnic defection, ethnic identity rarely transforms to adopt ethnic values of an opposing ethnicity. For instance, it has been detailed that, notwithstanding en mass pro-Moscow ethnic defection among Chechens, defectors did not abandon their Chechen identity and did not adopt Russian national identity (Souleimanov, 2015). Ethnic defection, despite the lack of identity shift, has been described to occur due to “loyalism” toward the state actor (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 1050). However, even from the perspective of loyalism—which entails that individuals switch their loyalties (not identities) to a stronger actor—it is hard to explain why hundreds or thousands of people take up arms against their coethnics on the incumbent side. For example, loyalism fails to provide an exhaustive explanation as to why thousands of Chechen ethnonationalist rebels—who had little sympathy for Russians—switched sides during the Second Chechen War. Loyalism also provides no clues as to why Iraqi Sunni tribesmen, many of whom fought in the “Sunni Triangle” against the U.S. troops, decided to turn their weapons against Sunni insurgents and to align with Shiite government in Baghdad. In the same vein, decisions of Afghan Pashtuns to join the Northern Alliance and the United States, or of Iraqi Kurdish fursan to collaborate with the Ba’th regime, were hardly dictated by the sense of loyalty to their sworn enemies (Voller, 2014; Yaniv, 2014). As these examples suggest, in many cases, ethnic defectors prior to their defection had limited opportunities to experience governance under their future patrons. This means that, very often, there was simply not enough time for ethnic minorities to develop loyalism toward the stronger actor. In other cases, such as during the Sudanese civil war or the Somalian conflicts, state weakness and failure resulted in the absence of state.

State Capacity and Revenge

The extant literature argued that ethnic defection is heavily influenced by constructivist causes. For instance, Kalyvas (2008) stated that ethnic defection is likely to take place in stronger states, which have the capacity to hold and control most of their territory (p. 1051). However, numerous cases of ethnic defection in weak or even failed states suggest that further explanation is needed (Aliyev, 2017a). For example, ethnic defections during the Sudanese civil war, Somalia’s civil war, Myanmar’s conflicts with Karen and Kachin rebels, the East Ukraine conflict, as well as Uganda’s conflict with the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) demonstrate that state weakness did not prevent the government from welcoming defectors. Instead, the lack of state capacity to defeat the rebels increases incentives for the incumbent to encourage ethnic defection among rebellious ethnicities (Eck, 2015). State capacity emerges as crucial when it comes to allocation of resources to defectors, such as wages, weapons, and funding, which may facilitate further defections. Yet, even in the absence of extensive state resources to attract ethnic defectors, the prospect of legitimization within state structures, land rights, or simply control over tribal or ethnic affairs and administration may be sufficient for ethnic defectors to convince them in benefits of side switching.

The other previously rehearsed argument about ethnic defection is that it is more likely to occur “in later stages of a war” (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 1051), because it would take time for would-be defectors to develop grudge against the rebels and to seek revenge. Indeed, quest for revenge has played central role in ethnic defection in Chechnya (Souleimanov & Aliyev, 2015), Turkey (Gurcan, 2015), Algeria (Roux, 1991), and many other conflicts (Kalyvas, 2008, p. 1054). The theme of revenge aligns with the logic of ethnic responsibility, in that, individuals perceive rebel actions as a form of personal or ethnic offense and switch sides to punish their offenders. Staniland (2012) describes fratricidal violence within ethnic rebel groups in Kashmir and Sri Lanka as the key incentive for defection. Revenge may also acquire individualistic character, whereby ethnic defectors seek to avenge personal offenses (Souleimanov et al., 2016). Yet, in many conflicts, ethnic defection occurs at very early stages. For example, pro–Northern Alliance defections in Afghanistan, as well as progovernment defection in East Ukraine and anti-The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Kurdish defectors in Turkey, demonstrate that although revenge can emerge as major incentive for defection at later conflict periods, it may not be sufficiently well developed at the conflict onset. Another explanation would be that intraethnic grievances tend to accumulate before the conflict onset and the latent urge for revenge spills out into a violent conflict.

The cases of ethnic defection throughout modern history demonstrate that restoring honor, avenging cultural offenses, and obeying tribal or customary laws may prove to be more important than proindependence and secessionist aspirations. Sikh, Marathi, and Pashtun recruits, as well as Nepalese Gurkhas and Maori tribesmen—mobilized against their own kin in the service of the British Empire—are among the multitude of examples of anti-independence mobilization in traditionalist societies. All the above suggests that the extant theory of ethnic defection does not thoroughly explain the variation in the patterns of defection. Identity shift, loyalism, and the state capacity provide only partial explanation for the occurrence of ethnic defection.

The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility

The key theoretical argument of this study is that ethnic defection occurs not only as a result of an identity shift—which leads to individuals adopting a new ethnic identity—but also, most of all, due to responsibility to uphold and protect ethnic values. Although ethnic rebels tend to portray themselves as defenders of ethnic values, their interpretation of ethnic identity may not be readily accepted by all their coethnics. Less or more traditionalist or radical interpretations of ethnonationalist aspirations are causes of splits within rebel organizations or rebel constituencies, which often lead to defection (Gates, 2002). This study proposes that ethnic defection, which occurs in many contemporary armed conflicts, is, above all, motivated by the emergence of ethnic responsibility.

The logic of ethnic responsibility is as follows. To start with, rebel actions against the incumbent are perceived by ethnic defectors as counterproductive or harmful for their own coethnics. Disregard for local sociocultural customs, forms of social organization and religious traditions, and their replacement with foreign ideologies are among the most common forms of violating ethnic values. This evokes the sense of collective responsibility to safeguard and “restore” ethnic values and to dislodge the rebels, even if it requires taking arms against coethnics and joining an actor opposed to their ethnonationalist aspirations. All the above is likely, but not necessarily, to be filtered through the presence of an external actor, which may be either in form of a direct military assistance or as ideological influence and/or financial aid. In many cases, external intervention in support of rebels, both in the form of military assistance and ideological influence, is likely to strengthen the sense of ethnic responsibility and to encourage ethnic defection. Below, I explain the logic of ethnic responsibility in detail.

Unlocking Ethnic Responsibility

Preserving ethnic identity and defending ethnic values might serve as key motivations driving individuals to fight against their coethnics. Scholars describe ethnic conflicts as confrontations over ethnonationalist aspirations (Cederman & Girardin, 2007; Fearon & Laitin, 2003; Wimmer, 2008). However, ethnonationalist ideology has been described in conflict studies as one of the most divisive for intergroup unity forms of ideologies. For instance, Esteban and Ray (2008) theorized that, for ethnicity-based groups, it is much harder to maintain intragroup homogeneity than for political ideology, religion, or class-defined groups. This leads toward an assumption that although ethnonationalist objectives can encourage ethnic unity in some ethnic groups, they can also divide others. In other words, ethnic values can be understood differently within the same ethnic group (Knight, Bernal, Garza, & Cota, 1993). Ethnic dissent and radicalization may lead to a split and to divisions, encouraging coethnics to support either rebels or the government, irrespective of ethnic identity. An ethnic faction may join the government against their coethnics as long as it enables them to protect their ethnic values. These ethnic “defectors” perceive themselves as defenders of ethnic values and their alliance, with the incumbent seen as instrumental toward achieving his or her goals.

Ethnic values are formed by group perceptions of ethnic culture, traditions, and historical and contemporary developments in the formation of an ethnic identity (Phinney & Ong, 2007). Although for some ethnic groups, ethnic values rest on traditional organizational structures, such as clans and tribes, for others, local customs, traditions, and ethics are at the core of values, which define an ethnicity. Other quintessential constituents of ethnic values are religious and sectarian beliefs. Many conflict-affected ethnic groups harbor ethnonationalist aspirations engrained into ethnic values and constructed around ethnic identity. Previous research has shown that although ethnic values are at the base of ethnonationalist aspirations of ethnic groups, ethnic rebels may choose to transform, supplement, “upgrade,” or merge them with political and religious sectarian ideologies (Sayigh, 1989). These wartime transformations of ethnic values are always subject to discontent and challenge among more orthodox or fundamentalist elements within the broader ethnonationalist movement. Hence, any deviation from the popularly perceived understanding of ethnic values raises the possibility of opposition and evokes responsibility to protect “authentic” values. In the context of armed conflict, a range of rebel actions, including, but not limited to attacks on civilians, targeting of holy sites, and disregard for local traditions, may sparkle violent armed opposition to rebels by their own coethnics.

Ethnic responsibility is premised on the need to safeguard ethnic values protecting them from intragroup challengers, such as intraethnic factions seeking to alter or transform the traditionalist or populist perception of ethnic values. Efforts to introduce new or marginal sectarian tenets or to outlaw local customs and traditions, to dismantle traditional organizational structures and their influence may be among the factors that evoke ethnic responsibility. For example, attempts by the Pakistani Taliban Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to circumvent Pashtun tribal traditions were known to cause splits between the group’s North and South Waziristan factions, when northern TTP factions refused to violate tribal agreements with the army.¹ Although disregard for ethnic values have often led to temporary disagreements within rebel movements or between the rebels and the broader population, cases of armed defection are frequent.

The evidence of ethnic responsibility is notable from a number of recent civil wars. Large numbers of ethnic Chechens were joining pro-Russian militias kadyrovtsy during the Second Chechen War to protect their ethnic values—engrained in the Sufi interpretation of Islam—from Salafi insurgents (Souleimanov & Aliyev, 2015). Chechen recruits into pro-Russian paramilitary units were motivated by the responsibility to safeguard Chechen ethnic values from “outside” Arab-influenced brand of Jihadi Islam (Ratelle, 2016; Souleimanov, 2015). Chechen defectors, led by a former rebel Sufi cleric, Akhmad Kadyrov, claimed that radical Salafi Islamists have threatened Chechen culture, traditional Sufi sects, clan structure, and the Chechen way of life. Participation on the Russian side was seen as instrumental toward achieving their ethnic goals. Russia’s conflict with Salafi insurgents was understood by traditionalist Chechen factions as an opportunity to restore traditional values. Given that ethnic defectors join the fight against their coethnics driven by ethnic responsibility to defend their interpretation of ethnic values, they perceive incumbent as the key guarantor of law and order. In a similar vein, numerous Pashtun tribes defected to join the Northern Alliance in their fight against Taliban during the early stages of the Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 to 2002 (Conetta, 2002). Rising against their coethnics among Taliban—a predominantly Pashtun rebel group—was seen by Pashtun tribesmen not as defection or betrayal, but as restoration of Pashtun control over Kandahar and southern regions, as well as return to traditional Pashtun values (Barfield, 2011; Behuria, 2007; Giustozzi, 2010). The spread of radical Jihadi Islam was seen by Pashtun tribesmen as associated with the inflow of Jihadi foreign fighters that has led to decline of the traditional customary law Pashtunwali and the delegation of powers from the clan system to Taliban. Similar developments were observed during the ongoing civil war in Somalia. The opposition of numerous Somalian clans to al-Shabaab—which is blamed by some clans for persecution of tribal values and Sufi traditions (Gartenstein-Ross, 2009)—resulted in several clans supporting not only the government in Mogadishu but also Ethiopian troops against their own coethnics (Samatar, 2007). Destruction of Sufi shrines and places of pilgrimage by al-Shabaab militants was heavily criticized by traditionalist Somali Sheikhs.²

The revenge argument (Kalyvas, 2008) further supports the logic of ethnic responsibility (p. 1051). Although it is possible that some ethnic defectors will seek revenge for individually inflicted grievances, for many, particularly in traditional and honorific societies, revenge is an issue of restoring one’s honor or adhering to customary laws (Nisbett, 2018; Souleimanov & Aliyev, 2015). Nevertheless, ethnic responsibility differs from revenge, in that, it is not only directed at avenging offenses but also aimed at restoring and safeguarding ethnic values and traditions. Ethnic responsibility emerges not only during the conflict onset but also at its later stages when ethnic grievances can be expected to accumulate and accentuate.

External Trigger

In all the above examples of ethnic defection, involvement of a third-party actor supporting rebels—either directly or indirectly—has been instrumental toward evoking ethnic responsibility and encouraging ethnic defectors to join the government. Ethnic grievances experienced by ethnic minority groups were often rehearsed by scholars of ethnic conflicts as key factors behind ethnosecessionist conflicts (Buhaug, Cederman, & Gleditsch, 2014; Cederman, Wimmer, & Min, 2010; Collier, 2007; Fearon & Laitin, 2003). However, ethnic grievances not only are intrinsic to ethnic minorities persecuted by governments but also can occur when external actors seek to influence ethnic groups by supporting ethnonationalist rebellions. External intervention—including ideological and military—has as many chances to strengthen insurgency as to create splits within ethnic groups. Studies on prorebel third-party interventions in intrastate wars detail that outside influence often encourages disagreements among rebels, which, in some cases, lead to dissent (Aydin & Regan, 2012; Salehyan, 2009). Divisions in rebel camps are likely to emerge if external actors promote ideologies or factionalism, which may contradict or differ from ethnic values of the rebellious ethnic group(s).

Although ideological influence by an external actor may have a steady effect on intraethnic perception of ethnic values and the development of ethnic responsibility, a direct third-party military intervention has far stronger potential to promptly evoke ethnic defection. For example, local discontent with Al-Qaeda presence among Sunni Iraqi tribesmen has taken several years to develop into the sense of ethnic responsibility, leading to ethnic defection in the form of anti-Islamist militias “Sons of Iraq” (Clayton & Thomson, 2014). It is only after an offer by the U.S. commander in Ramadi, Col. Sean MacFarland, to assemble anti–Al-Qaeda militia that tribal Sheikhs began mobilizing defectors (Cottam & Huseby, 2016, p. 82).

Somewhat differently, radical Salafi ideology promoted by Jihadi fighters during both Chechen Wars has led to deep cleavages within Chechen proindependence movement—that resulted in skirmishes and antagonism between jihadists and nationalists—but had only culminated in ethnic defection with the start of Russian military intervention in 1999 (Souleimanov & Aliyev, 2015). Similarly to the Chechen example, Pashtun discontent with Taliban was not openly expressed until the start of the U.S. military campaign, which served as a trigger for ethnic defection among Pashtun tribes and clans (Friedberg, 2002).

Notwithstanding the significance of external influence, not all episodes of ethnic defection involve external actors. The well-known cases of ethnic defection without third-actor intervention were among Uganda’s LRA, Kurdish PKK, Sri Lankan LTTE, and Kenya’s Mau Mau insurgency. However, the aforementioned rebel groups, alongside ethnonationalist aspirations, heavily relied on personal charisma of their leaders and on ethnically divisive political or religious ideologies, which were seen by coethnics as equally damaging to ethnic values.

Greed Driven?

Similarly to other grievances, ethnic responsibility “focuses on the public good aspect of rebellion” (Hoeffler, 2011, p. 275). From the perspective of public good, protection of ethnic values provides an explanation as to why individuals choose to fight against their coethnics. However, as with many other rebellions, which start as grievances-driven conflicts, ethnic defections may also be influenced by material incentives. Mobilizing on the stronger actor’s side enables ethnic defectors to reap material benefits, which they would be unable to access when supporting rebels. Although material greed may not always be considered by would-be ethnic defectors when first making decisions to sideline with the incumbent (Staniland, 2014), it is still engendered in the defectors’ quest for stability—including economic prosperity—and human security for their families and broader coethnics.

Apart from financial rewards associated with loyalty to the incumbent, land rights, control over trade, and access to political offices were among material rewards provided to ethnic defectors (Kalyvas, 2006). Defector armed units are commonly granted official status or are incorporated into formal security structures, as was the case with pro-Moscow Chechen militias kadyrovtsy (Souleimanov et al., 2016). Anti-Taliban defectors from among Pashtuns were granted political offices in the newly formed Afghan government in 2002 (Hodes & Sedra, 2013). Provided that the incumbent emerges victorious, defectors will be appointed to govern the rebellious region, or their own ethnic group. Indeed, the practice of appointing loyal locals to leading administrative positions has been a long-standing governance strategy, dating back to the Roman Empire (Ando, 2013). Widely used by the British during the era of colonial expansion, “loyal appointments” became a norm of British colonial rule, particularly in the aftermath of the Great Mutiny (Iyer, 2010).

Although the protection of ethnic values may serve as the key driver of ethnic defection, material incentives offer extra motivations for defectors, encouraging them to seek not only political stability but also economic benefits of mobilizing against their coethnics. Bearing in mind that ethnic defectors provide government with indispensable intelligence and local knowledge (of terrain), crucial in counterinsurgency campaigns (Lyall, 2010), incumbents tend to supply defector militias with weapons and equipment, as well as with salaries (Clayton & Thomson, 2014). Even in the absence of other material benefits, access to military hardware and regular payments may seem sufficient to sustain defection.

Method and Data

Studying ethnic defection during the East Ukraine conflict provides a unique opportunity to examine complex dynamics of ethnic responsibility on an understudied ethnic conflict. Exploring this single case allows analyzing the key factors that may be accountable for the emergence of ethnic responsibility: perceived misrepresentation of ethnic values by rebels, foreign influence, identity shift, the effects of state capacity, material incentives, and loyalty. By analyzing a single case study, this study benefits from the opportunity to capture both micro- and macrolevel dynamics, which often elude cross-national analyses. Bearing in mind that ethnic defection has occurred under very similar conditions elsewhere (Turkey, Myanmar, Philippines, etc.), the Ukrainian case has broad implications for research on ethnic responsibility in ethnically diverse societies.

This study draws the bulk of its empirical data from qualitative semistructured face-to-face interviews with Russian-speaking members of Ukrainian progovernment volunteer (paramilitary) battalions,³ National Guard, State Security Service, and Special Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Interviews cover period from March 2014, when the first wave of war mobilization was announced, to February 2015, when Minsk II ceasefire agreement was signed. A total of 86 (100%) Russian-speaking progovernment volunteers were interviewed. Informants were recruited based on their self-identification as Russian speakers. All interview participants identified themselves as “Russian-speaking Ukrainians,” although 81 (94%) informants admitted that they are also either ethnic Russians (72%) or have “Russian roots” (28%). All informants identified Russian as the first language and Ukrainian as second. Noteworthy is that 29 (30%) informants indicated that they had limited knowledge of Ukrainian language, and many mentioned that their Ukrainian was “conversational.” With the exception of three female members of paramilitary battalions, all informants were males aged between 19 and 47 years. With regard to premobilization occupations, 57 (66%) had white-collar jobs, 17 (19%) were self-employed as small-business owners, 32 (37%) were university students, and 27 (31%) were studying for professional degrees. Sample consists of 53 (61%) demobilized service men and women and 33 (38%) were continuing their military service at the time of interviews.

Another sample selection criterion was membership in progovernment armed units for at least 30 consecutive days and participation in military action against separatists in East Ukraine conflict, also known as Donbas War. Sample randomness was achieved by limiting the number of informants from one battalion or division to five individuals. Access to informants was obtained through eight volunteer recruitment centers in Kiev and three in Dnipro. Further contacts were provided by the All-Ukrainian Union of ATO Veterans, MVD press service, National Guard Press Centre, and the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. Although there were no efforts to achieve sample representativeness, the researcher believes that informants represented at least 20% of Russian speakers in their respective military units at the time of their service.⁴

Sixteen-month-long fieldwork was conducted in Ukraine between August 2015 and October 2017. Two waves of interviews (23 and 29 interviews) were carried out in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, which has served as the key mobilization center for volunteers from western, central, and southern regions of Ukraine. The first wave was conducted in 2015 to 2016 and interviewed 23 informants, and the second wave was carried out in 2017 and consisted of 36 interviews, including seven follow-up interviews with informants interviewed during the first wave. One wave (34) of interviews was conducted in the eastern city of Dnipro (Dnepropetrovsk). Dnipro was selected due to its major role as a mobilization hub for volunteers from eastern Ukraine. In terms of geographic origins of informants, 31 (36%) were originally from eastern regions, these included seven participants from Donetsk, 27 (31%) from central, and 28 (32%) from southern regions.

Interviews lasted from 20 min to 1 hr, depending on the informants’ willingness to engage with the researcher. All interviews were based on a semistructured list of questions, which enquired informants about reasons for mobilization; personal perceptions toward the conflict, separatists; Russian identity versus Ukrainian identity; and individual incentives for mobilization. Informants were encouraged to describe their experiences and opinions as narratives and stories. Due to security concerns, no voice recording devices were used during interviews and answers were recorded as field notes. All interviews were carried out in Russian language. Because interviews were conducted on the condition of strict anonymity, names of informants in this article were replaced with pseudonyms. Narrative analysis was used to code the interview data.

Additional 45 interviews were carried out in Kiev (32) and Dnipro (13) with Russian speakers who had no direct experience of conflict mobilization. These interviews were unstructured and were carried out with the purpose of situating the analysis into broader societal context reflected in perceptions and opinions of the Russian-speaking community. The interviews focused on perceptions of participants about the armed conflict, Russian identity, and the notion of Russian World (Russkii Mir).

Along with interviews, fieldwork involved ethnographic participant observation among Russian speakers of Kiev and Dnipro. Hundreds of informal conversations with random individuals at informal settings have provided further contextual background, crucial for understanding the conflict-related attitudes and opinions of Ukraine’s Russian speakers.

The following empirical sections begin by applying the extant defection theory to the case of Ukraine and commence with examination of identity shift, state capacity, loyalty, and material incentives. The empirical discussion then proceeds to analyze the validity of ethnic responsibility concept in the case of Ukraine’s Russian speakers. With the particular emphasis on ethnic values of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking community, such as their distinct identity from Russian ethnolinguistic identity and their conformity with the Ukrainian statehood, the empirical analysis draws heavily on the conflict participants’ and witnesses’ testimonies of individual perceptions and motivations.

Shifting From Russian Speakers Into Ukrainians?

The question that looms large is whether an identity shift occurred since the start of East Ukraine conflict? Did the Ukrainization campaign, launched by Petro Poroshenko’s government to strengthen Ukrainianness, succeed in “converting” Russian speakers into Ukrainian speakers, and how did it influence wartime mobilization of Russian speakers? Russian-speaking informants both among progovernment volunteers and the general public appeared impervious to Ukrainization. In the words of a respondent from Kiev, “I have spoken Russian all my life and nothing has changed or will change. Yes, we have to do official paperwork in Ukrainian, but that’s how it always was . . . since independence [from USSR].”⁵ A former paramilitary combatant described that

my entire regiment at “Azov” was speaking Russian. All commands were issued in Russian. I never heard of someone trying to enforce Ukrainian [language]. You could speak it, if you like, but we were all Russian-speakers. We had nothing against Ukrainian, but it’s was just easier for us to communicate in Russian.⁶

When confronted with the question as to whether they felt more Ukrainian after mobilizing for Ukrainian army, most denied any connection between wartime mobilization and ethnolinguistic identity shift. A retired National Guard member stated,

the goal was to fight war not to change ethnicity [natsional‘nost’]. We [Russian-speakers] were quite happy with what we are and there were many of us there [in the armed forces]. Many in the army. Many in the [paramilitary] battalions. Many commanders were speaking only Russian.⁷

Although many informants reported the sense of national unity and patriotism when at war, none associated them with identity shift. In the words of an army volunteer,

When I was at the front, I was proud for my country . . . Ukraine, but I was not going to become a Ukrainian-speaker all of a sudden! You can be both a Ukrainian patriot and Russian-speaker. We are all Slavs and [these] languages are not different at all. I never saw it as a big deal.⁸

These opinions are supported by recent studies on the effectiveness of Ukrainization in post-Maidan years. Although scholars recorded a steady process of identity shift with more Russian–Ukrainians identifying themselves as Ukrainians in a period between 1989 and 2001 (Stebelsky, 2009), recent survey findings indicate that armed conflict has had no observable effect on identity even in the conflict-affected region of Donbas. Thus, a ZOiS (The Centre for East European and International Studies) survey (Sasse & Lackner, 2018) conducted in both DNR and LNR, as well as in Kiev-controlled Donbas, reported that no significant change is observed in whether people feel more Ukrainian or more Russian, which suggests that no notable identity shift has occurred as a result of conflict (p. 145).

State Capacity, Material Incentives, and Loyalism

What did the Ukrainian state do to facilitate ethnic defection and what resources did it allocate toward that goal? Most informants recall that little has been done to attract Russian speakers into progovernment armed forces. As observed by a paramilitary volunteer,

I have heard the mobilisation call, but I have already served in the army, so technically I did not have to enlist, but I did it. However, I had to buy my own uniform, pay for food, ammunition. They [battalion] provided me with a weapon, but it was an old Soviet AK-47, so after three weeks in ATO, I had to spend my own savings to buy a newer model [of weapon].⁹

An army volunteer shared a similar story,

No one has ever persuaded me to join. Yes, there was draft, but many of my friends avoided it. When I joined the corps, I was told that I have to pay for tactical gear, and helmet. They issued weapons, but if I wanted to get a newer more functional weapon, I had to give some money to the platoon commander.¹⁰

Many other informants confirmed that not only there were no incentives, or coercive mechanisms facilitating mobilization, but most were actually compelled to purchase their own uniforms, ammunition, and even weapons. The Ukrainian armed forces’ lack of capacity (Kuzio, 2000) and widespread corruption at all levels of military administration, inherited from the Soviet period (Aliyev, 2016a; Cabelkova & Hanousek, 2004), were the key reasons behind the ad hoc character of the Ukrainian wartime mobilization. Scholars and analysts alike cited the absence of coordinated military strategy and efficient planning in Ukraine during the first several months of Donbas conflict (Akimenko, 2018; Menon & Rumer, 2015; Rahemtulla & Goncharova, 2016). The lack of coordination and planning has led to a series of military defeats that the Ukrainian army suffered in the April and May 2014,¹¹ which resulted in the rise of volunteer paramilitary battalions (Aliyev, 2016b). Yet, even paramilitaries did not specifically target Russian speakers in their recruitment. Rather, as confirmed by the interviewees, volunteer battalions were widely seen as better and more effective alternative to the army.

I joined the [volunteer] battalion not because they “indoctrinated” me, but because I knew they are not corrupt and that there is no hazing [unlike the army] and that they would actually fight the enemy, not just hide in trenches,¹²

a former paramilitary combatant revealed when asked to explain his choice of enlistment. Another member of a volunteer battalion has said that, in the mid-2014, his battalion has had no recruitment strategy at all and that it survived “solely on private donations” and that “most of our clothing and food came from the volunteers’ families and friends.”¹³ Notwithstanding the lack of state capacity to motivate recruitment of Russian speakers, they soon became a sizable portion of a counterinsurgency force in the East Ukraine conflict (Schwetz, 2014). Much in contrast, Ukrainian-speaking western regions became notorious in 2014 for the largest draft evasion in postcommunist history of Ukraine.¹⁴

Although during the early stages of mobilization from April to June 2014, both the Ukrainian state and volunteer battalions lacked efficient recruitment strategy and material resources required to attract mobilization, the situation began to change in the second half of 2014 and the early 2015. A number of financial assistance packages from the European Union and United States enabled Ukraine to invest in modernizing its military, which resulted in increased salaries for contract-based servicemen.¹⁵ Simultaneously, lavish donations by oligarchs increased monetary incentives for paramilitary battalion members. For example, fighters of Dnipro-based “Dnipro-1” battalion, founded and financed by a well-known Jewish–Ukrainian oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, were reportedly paid US$1,000 per month in 2015.¹⁶ Starting from the late 2014, members of other paramilitary battalions began receiving individual salaries of US$600 for soldiers and up to US$2,000 for officers.¹⁷ With an average Ukrainian salary of US$250 per month, service in proregime forces became a viable career option, which many volunteers were keen on pursuing. As explained by a paramilitary officer,

Lots of our guys joined because they wanted to fight separatists, we paid them nothing and instead they had to pay for everything from their own pockets, but now they remain because they want to make a military career. Its good money, way more than you can make in civilian life.¹⁸

A member of an elite army force added,

We had really hard time when ATO started and I questioned my choice [of enlisting] many times . . . but now we are paid handsomely, plus there are all sorts of bonuses. I never made that much in my civilian career [as a bus driver]. I am glad that I am here.¹⁹

Thus, interviews demonstrate that although most ethnic defectors mobilized despite the lack of material incentives or coercion, many have chosen to remain due to financial benefits provided for service in progovernment forces. Individual incentives for Russian-speaking progovernment military commanders were even higher. For “Donbas” battalion commander, Semenchenko, and “Azov” commander, Biletsky—both elected as members of Parliament—the cost of ethnic defection was more than justified.

The paradox of 2014 to 2015 progovernment wartime mobilization is that, despite mobilizing for the regime, Russian speakers remain highly critical of the incumbent and display low levels of loyalism, which seemed to serve as recruitment motivation for some. In the words of a paramilitary volunteer,

one of the reasons why I had to join the battalion is because I had no trust in the government and I didn’t believe that they are able to make things right in the East. We had to take things into our own hands . . . because the corrupt oligarchs in power only care about making money.²⁰

A similar opinion was voiced by an army volunteer who confessed that “I have no trust in the government, but I trust my commanders and I know that they won’t sell us even if Avakov [Minister of Interior] orders them to do so.”²¹ A number of interviewees in volunteer battalions expressed similar views claiming that both President Petro Poroshenko and Arsen Avakov are “corrupt and untrusty” and that it is only “by taking matters into one’s own hands” that a real change can be done in Ukraine. Indeed, volunteer battalions are well known for their disobedience and disregard for the government orders that encapsulate the Russian speakers’ overall preference to “only rely on their own people.” Suspicions that ATO veterans and the battalions’ members, as well as the National Guard units, might stage a coup are widespread and often not unfounded.²² The antigovernment attitudes of progovernment fighters reflect the overall perceptions of Ukraine’s Russian speakers. As captured by the ZOiS survey (Sasse, 2017), more than 85% of respondents in Kiev-controlled Donbas reported low levels of trust in the Ukrainian president (p. 12). Remarkably, low levels of trust in the government among ethnic defectors—indicative of limited loyalism to the regime—are coupled with a strong sense of ethnic responsibility to mobilize.

Ethnic Values Betrayed

“I felt deep resentment when I heard that those gangsters from Donetsk [separatists] claimed that they represent Russian-speakers of Ukraine and they fight for our rights.”²³ This statement quoted from a paramilitary volunteer from eastern Ukraine sums up attitudes and opinions of many Russian speakers in 2014 Ukraine. Another progovernment volunteer from Kiev emphasized,

We [Russian-speakers] felt offended, misrepresented and simply ignored when separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk said that they fight for Russian values. They don’t. We [Russian-speakers] live in peace here in Kiev with Ukrainian-speakers and we don’t need others telling us what our values should be.²⁴

A former resident of Donetsk who volunteered for a Russian-speaking progovernment paramilitary battalion “Donbas,” explained that

no one asked our opinion . . . what we want, they just held that staged [pro-independence] referendum and our fate was decided. This is not what we wanted, so I went to fight for my rights, my identity and chance to live in peace in my own country.²⁵

Another army volunteer from Kiev, but born in Donbas region, explained his decision to volunteer because “not only that small group of bandits from Donetsk has no right to speak on behalf of all Russian-speakers, but also they show us [Russian-speakers] in a very bad light, like we are all criminals, which is intolerable.”²⁶ He continued, “speaking on behalf of myself, my family [in Donbas] and all whom I know [from Donbas] we don’t want these ‘people’s republics’ or Novorossiya, or whatever other fictitious [states] that they create to line up their pockets.”

These opinions are not a single voice in a crowd. Recent surveys reveal that Russian speakers both in separatist-held territories and Kiev-controlled Donbas, as well as other eastern and southern regions, demonstrated fairly limited levels of support for separatist objectives. A survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology on the eve of the East Ukraine conflict in April 8 to 11, 2014, in Donbas, reported that only 29% of respondents supported separation from Ukraine (Giuliano, 2015, p. 5). The same survey has found that about 60% of respondents across Donbas believed that the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine are not violated (Giuliano, 2015, p. 12). Riabchuk (2015) details that a 2013 survey poll in Donetsk recorded 22% support for Ukraine’s integration with the European Union (p. 144). Representative survey conducted by O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolosov (2017) in Donbas and southern Russian-speaking regions revealed that only about 20% of population supported the separatists’ goals of establishing a Russian-speaking state “Novorossiya” in eastern and southern Ukraine (p. 124). The same survey identified that more than 80% of respondents believed “Novorossiya”—a major separatist state-building project—to be nothing more than a myth (O’Loughlin et al., 2017, p. 140). The informants’ narratives illustrated that ethnic values of Ukraine’s Russian speakers are based not on association with Russia and pro-Russian nationalism, but on perception of Ukraine as a multiethnic state where Russian language is spoken alongside the Ukrainian.

Resentment and disagreement with separatists were even higher among Russian speakers from central and southern Ukraine, who reported to have no ideological connection with the separatists’ goals. An army volunteer from the southern city of Odessa, described that

I joined the army when I heard that separatist forces approach the Black Sea coast and I did not want them to come to my city. They are just a bunch of criminals and I don’t want them to do to us what they did in Donetsk and Lugansk.²⁷

A paramilitary combatant from a central region argued that “this conflict has nothing to do with the rights of Russian-speakers, Russian language or identity. It is all about a small group of criminals attempting to seize power and money.”²⁸ The perception of separatists as “criminals” and “gangsters” was a widespread narrative among many interviewees who claimed that the issue of ethnolinguistic identity was simply hijacked by separatists and employed to achieve their own, primarily financial objectives. Although the Ukrainian government employed similar terminology when referring to DNR and LNR,²⁹ it has to be admitted that cities of Donetsk and Lugansk enjoyed the reputation of organized crime and mafia hubs well before the start of the East Ukraine conflict (Aliyev, 2017b, pp. 150-152). Informants from central Ukraine almost unanimously challenged the separatists’ claims that their ethnolinguistic rights were violated by the new government in Kiev. A volunteer from Kiev argued,

they [Donetsk and Lugansk residents] have had all the freedom they wanted to use Russian. They never even came in contact with Ukrainian-speakers, unless they travelled to the West. It is us here who live alongside Ukrainian-speakers and we have nothing to complain about.³⁰

When asked why so many Russian speakers have mobilized to fight, most informants agreed that, as encapsulated in the words of a volunteer from Dnipro, “it is very much our conflict. It concerns us more than it does concern Ukrainian-speakers. It concerns the survival of our Russian-speaker [russkoyazichnyi] identity and the identity of Ukraine as multi-ethnic society.”³¹ Another informant from Odessa added,

I believe in Ukraine as country where both languages can be spoken, and Odessa is such a place and I do not want it to change. If we do nothing then life will become black-and-white: Ukrainian-Russian, good-bad, and so on.³²

A number of interview participants directly associated the continuity and survival of the Russian-speaking culture (russkoyazichnaya kul’tura) with the war effort. A former paramilitary combatant explained,

I went to war not because I am a nationalist or because I am such a big patriot, I went there because I want to make things right again. I do not want Russian identity [in Ukraine] to be associated with murderers who shot down passenger airplanes.³³

A somewhat similar explanation was voiced by a volunteer from Donbas, who reminded that

war has changed everything. Before I could drive my car with Donbas number plates to Kiev and never worry about anything . . . when the war started, I would get my [car] windows smashed just because of my number plates. I don’t want to be a second class citizen in my own country because I speak Russian.³⁴

He explicitly blamed separatists for the change of attitudes to Russian speakers, and explained his mobilization as “absolutely necessary to stand up to my own rights” (see Note 34).

These narratives demonstrate that Russian speakers who mobilized against their coethnics in 2014 to 2015 Ukraine were both resentful and infuriated by the separatists’ efforts to deploy ethnolinguistic issues as the base of their ideology and justification of their cessation from Ukraine. Although many informants cited patriotism and the obligation “to defend motherland” as reasons for mobilization, themes of betrayed ethnic identity emerged as dominant. Fieldwork findings illustrate that the ethnic values of progovernment Russian speakers are centered on the perception of their Russian ethnolinguistic identity as compatible with and complimentary to the Ukrainian statehood. Ukraine’s Russian speakers identify themselves as distinct from Russians elsewhere, which is yet another integral part of their ethnic values. Russian-speaking combatants from among proregime forces resented that their perceived ethnic values were distorted and twisted by the separatists. The DNR/LNR interpretation of Russian or Russian-speaking ethnic identity and ethnic values as irrevocably associated with Russian Federation, “glorious” communist past, rejection of European and Western values, and support for Vladimir Putin’s regime became challenged by their coethnics, who were unwilling to accept ideological dogmas imposed by the separatists.

From Russia With War

Ukraine’s Russian speakers were always wary of its eastern neighbor’s interference in their affairs.³⁵ Russia’s covert support for DNR and LNR separatists from the start of the East Ukraine conflict was deeply resented by ethnic defectors among Ukraine’s Russian speakers even before Russia had sent its armored vehicles, heavy artillery, and hundreds of military personnel to Ukraine in August 2014. In the words of an army volunteer,

I knew from the start [of conflict] that it was Russia stirring up problems in Donbas and setting us to fight each other [stravlivala drug protiv druga]. All these ideas of Novorossiya . . . they all came from there [Russia].³⁶

A paramilitary combatant echoed that opinion: “this war would have never happened if not for Russia. They send weapons, people, ideology.”³⁷

Russia’s direct intervention in conflict in the late summer 2014 notably boosted ethnic defection among Russian speakers across Ukraine. Nearly half of the informants mobilized on the government side in the late July and August 2014. Many explained their decision to join proregime military units by indignation over Russia’s interference. As an informant confirmed, “once they [Russians] intervened, it became a war between us Ukrainian citizens and them Russian citizens, it is no longer about identity or language.”³⁸ From the perspective of Russian speakers, Russian intervention deprived separatists of independent agency, transforming them into mere tools of an external actor. “Those guys in Donetsk and Lugansk are just Russian puppets. Their soldiers are mostly from Russia, so are their weapons and money.”³⁹ Although many informants were convinced of Russia’s involvement in conflict escalation since the start of hostilities in April 2014, Moscow’s direct intervention in August 2014 hardened ethnic defectors convincing them that rebel entities were neither willing nor capable of defending the rights of Russian speakers. “Basically, it is all about Putin trying to tell us how we should live. All of a sudden he started to care about Russian-speakers/ethnic Russians,”⁴⁰ said an army volunteer.

Some ethnic defectors have sought to draw parallels between separatists’ ideology and Russian geopolitics in the post-Maidan period. “They [separatists] fantasized these utopian ideas of Novorossiya, and the need to defend all Russian-speakers, who face ‘non-stop abuse’ only after Ukraine decided to go its own way . . . parting with Putin’s politics,”⁴¹ argued a Russian speaker in Kiev. The credibility of separatists was further shattered by the presence of numerous Russian citizens among their ranks. For example, Igor Strelkov, the head of DNR from May to August 2014, was a former GRU (Russian military intelligence) officer and a Russian citizen with little connection to Ukraine. Alexander Borodai, who succeeded Strelkov, is also a Russian citizen. The replacement of Borodai with a Donetsk native, Alexander Zakharchenko, added little legitimacy to DNR in the eyes of Ukraine’s Russian speakers. In the words of a progovernment volunteer from Donetsk,

neither myself, nor anyone from my circle [in Donetsk] have ever heard of this guy. They [Russians] simply picked up a random local lad to make it look like it [rebellion] is local. He [Zakharchenko] was an electrician before, how could he become a “great ideologue” overnight?⁴²

However, the same informant admitted that DNR/LNR were not seen by Russian speakers as exclusively a “Moscow’s pet project,” but that there were numerous Donbas natives who have joined the separatists attracted by their ideology. Rather, it is Russia’s involvement that has severely undermined the separatists’ credibility. This suggests that external trigger was instrumental in alienating large segments of Russian speakers from the separatists’ cause.

Conclusion

This study has argued that ethnic defection occurs not necessarily due to ethnic identity shift or loyalty to a regime, but owing to ethnic responsibility that draws ethnic defectors to join the government that opposes their coethnics. This argument was empirically tested on the case study of Ukrainian progovernment mobilization among Russian speakers in the 2014 to 2015 East Ukraine conflict. As emphasized in the earlier sections of this article, owing to the complex ethnolinguistic context, ethnic fragmentation in Ukraine is defined not in accordance with individuals’ ethnic identity, but as based on their linguistic preferences. Therefore, instead of employing ambiguous and rather inaccurate divisions into ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians, this project investigated ethnic defection along linguistic distinctions into Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers, which appear far more crucial for ethnic identity than the individuals’ ethnic origins.

In-depth qualitative interviews with Russian speakers who joined proregime forces against their coethnics reveal that progovernment recruits had few other motivations to join apart from ethnic grievances engendered in the negative perception of separatists’ objectives and claims. Interviews demonstrate that ethnic defectors were infuriated by the separatists’ claim that they protect the rights of Ukraine’s Russian- speakers, and that they strife to carve out Russian-speaking territories from the Ukrainian state to create a utopian Russian-speaking state of Novorossiya. From the ethnic defectors’ perspective, the legitimacy of DNR/LNR’s claims was undermined by their involvement in organized crime and their quest for personal enrichment as a result of conflict. The separatists’ ideology was perceived by ethnic defectors as alien and as imported from abroad. A direct third-party prorebel intervention by Russia further cemented the conviction that ethnic values of Ukraine’s Russian speakers were hijacked by a foreign government to achieve its own geopolitical goals. This study has found that although ethnic defectors initially lacked material motivation to mobilize and instead were forced to invest their own resources to participate in conflict, the proliferation of the economy of war at later stages of the conflict created a range of material benefits and rewards for ethnic defectors. In contrast to the extant theory of ethnic defection (Kalyvas, 2008), Ukraine’s ethnic defectors demonstrate particularly low levels of loyalism to the regime that they have fought to protect. Rather, the weakness of the state and its inability to protect and represent all its citizens, including ethnic minorities, emerged as one of mobilization incentives.

This study contributes to the understudied topic of ethnic defection on both theoretical and empirical levels. Theoretically, it has proposed that individuals mobilize against their own coethnics on the government’s side due to ethnic grievances and constructivist factors such as external influence and material benefits, which do not necessarily require ethnic defectors to shift their ethnic identities or loyalties. Empirically, this is one of the few research works to demonstrate ethnic defection at the microlevel, drawing on the insights and opinions of conflict participants. That said, this study opens new avenues for future research on ethnic defection, suggesting that there might be multiple alternative explanations of the phenomenon.

Supplemental Material

TABLE_1 – Supplemental material for The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict

Supplemental material, TABLE_1 for The Logic of Ethnic Responsibility and Progovernment Mobilization in East Ukraine Conflict by Huseyn Aliyev in Comparative Political Studies

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study has been funded by the Lord Kelvin Adam Smith (LKAS) Research Fellowship at the University of Glasgow.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online at the CPS website

Notes

Author Biography

Huseyn Aliyev is an Lord Kelvin Adam Smith (LKAS) research fellow at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. He specializes in armed conflicts and non–state-armed groups. He is an author of When Informal Institutions Change: Institutional Reforms and Informal Practices in the Former Soviet Union (University of Michigan Press, 2017). His most recent publications appeared in Cooperation & Conflict (2018), Terrorism and Political Violence (2017), Security Dialogue (2016), and International Security (2015).

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