In In the early hours of 24 February 2022, Russian forces attacked Ukraine. The brutality of the Russian assault has horrified the world. But Russians themselves appear to be watching an entirely different war – one in which they are the courageous underdogs and kind-hearted heroes successfully battling a malign Ukrainian foe.
Russia analyst Dr. Jade McGlynn takes us on a journey into this parallel military and political universe to reveal the sometimes monstrous, sometimes misconstrued attitudes behind Russian majority backing for the invasion. Drawing on media analysis and interviews with ordinary citizens, officials and foreign-policy elites in Russia and Ukraine, Dr. McGlynn explores the grievances, lies and half-truths that pervade the Russian worldview.
She also exposes the complicity of many Russians, who have invested too deeply in the Kremlin’s alternative narratives to regard the war as Putin’s foolhardy mission. In their eyes, this is Russia’s war – against Ukraine, against the West, against evil – and there can be no turning back.
On 24 May at 1200, CSPC is pleased to welcome Dr. McGlynn to discuss her book and research, and what the Russian population’s understanding of the conflict in Ukraine could tell us about the course of the war and its eventual outcome.
Jade McGlynn is a research fellow in the War Studies Department at King’s College London. She is the author of Russia’s War (Polity, 2023), which examines domestic popular approval for Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, and Memory Makers: The Politics of the Past in Putin’s Russia (Bloomsbury, 2023) which details how the Russian state and society have used history to create a unifying national identity.
In addition, Jade has published two collected volumes and numerous peer-reviewed articles and chapters in academic articles and volumes. Jade’s research has focused on Russia’s war on Ukraine since 2014, Russian domestic media, Russian state-society relations, and Russian and Ukrainian memory politics and soft power globally.
She recently won a six-year award from Leverhulme to investigate Russia’s use of history in its strategic communications toward Africa, China, Germany, and the Western Balkans. Prior to joining King’s College London, Jade held academic research appointments at Middlebury College, Voronezh State University, and the University of Birmingham (United Kingdom). She received her DPhil from the University of Oxford and worked as a lecturer in Russian intellectual history and literature for two and a half years.
Beyond academia, Jade frequently advises policymakers in the UK and European governments. Jade also writes for, and is interviewed by, popular media, including BBC, CNN, PBS, Deutsche Welle, The Times, Foreign Policy, The Spectator, and many others.