The Ukrainian Crisis: between the Identity Policy and Confrontation to the “Russian World”

The article analyzes the main reasons for the current conflict in eastern Ukraine, which is difficult to call “local” today. It studies the role of Russia as the catalyst of the conflict through the export of ideology and involvement in military actions in the East of Ukraine. The article also focuses on internal reasons partially based on regional identity factors and describes such identity attributes as the ambivalence of the Ukrainian society; social grounds for confrontation; the role of regional elites in the conflict escalation; and the search for common values to renew the trust.