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The original was posted on /r/ukraine by /u/enocenip on 2025-06-23 18:38:06+00:00.
I found this useful for understanding my own biases, and I think it could be very useful when discussing the war with liberal minded folk like myself. I've run it through an AI translator that I think did an excellent job.
Original: https://trafo.hypotheses.org/52570
English translation:
The Angry Ukrainian Syndrome: Injustice and Stereotypes About War and Peace
By Olena Komar
In this article, I demonstrate a series of biases against Ukrainians in Western countries, which I call the “Angry Ukrainian Syndrome” (by analogy with the “North African syndrome”). These prejudices have emerged due to how Ukrainians speak about the war and how they are perceived in connection with Western European stereotypical expectations. Furthermore, these prejudices have a colonial nature, stemming from an inability to see Ukrainians as an independent people, distinct from Russians. This bias is reinforced by historical short-sightedness, influenced by pro-Russian sentiment in Slavic studies as well as by pseudo-pacifism.
Pseudo-pacifism is the tendency of those not under threat not only to deny assistance to those facing annihilation under the pretext of not escalating violence but also to shift the blame onto the victims—denying them the right to self-determination and the capacity to make informed decisions about their fate. These prejudices are also a form of epistemic injustice, which must be confronted by rooting out ignorance. Such ignorance can be intentional, serving the interests of the oppressor by sustaining misunderstanding of the experience and suffering of the oppressed.
There are several levels of epistemic injustice:
- Stereotyping Ukrainians’ struggle for survival and identity as a manifestation of belligerence;
- Rejection of war as a negative phenomenon is projected onto war victims—their experiences and emotions become unwanted. This leads to silencing or victimization;
- Injustice of testimony and gaslighting result from “blind spots” in people’s knowledge: a distrust of Ukrainians’ accounts and understanding of their own history and of Russians;
- Unjust equalization, coercion into peace and compromises that benefit only the aggressor.
Negativity or Resistance to Oppression?
A Ukrainian athlete refused to shake hands with a Russian athlete, Ukrainian writers declined to participate in a joint panel discussion with a Russian writer, and Ukrainian scholars protested against the idea of delegates from Russian universities participating in a conference.
How do Western Europeans react to such news? Do they view these actions as legitimate, just, reasonable? Most often, such events escalate into scandals, and the Ukrainians involved are accused of xenophobia, racism, or nationalism, cruelty, aggression, and discrimination, because Ukrainians distrust talk about peace negotiations, refuse to build “bridges of friendship” between intellectuals, and their statements are interpreted as hate speech.
Is there something wrong with the Ukrainians themselves and how they deliver their messages? Or is the problem on the side of the listeners, in how they perceive these messages and their trust in the speakers? I want to draw attention here to the latter.
The stereotypical perception of Ukrainians as angry, aggressive, belligerent, and perpetually dissatisfied plays into the hands of Russian propaganda, which tries to portray Ukrainians as simply “bad Russians.” In my opinion, without a proper understanding of hermeneutical injustice, the harm caused is likely to grow—reinforcing the formation of what I call the “Angry Ukrainian Syndrome.”
What Are the Preconditions for This Argument, and Where Does the Term Come From?
I use this term by analogy with the one used by Frantz Fanon, who introduced the “North African Syndrome” in his essay of the same name. This is not a medical diagnosis but a prejudice held by French psychiatrists toward North African inhabitants. Modern science recognizes this syndrome as a manifestation of racist colonial bias—under which North Africans were seen as lazy or overly emotional.
This viewpoint did not necessarily stem from malice on the part of individual doctors, but rather from stereotypical perceptions of Africans as mentally inferior and emotionally unstable—perceptions shaped by colonial attitudes. This bias arose unconsciously as a result of institutional instruction—but does that absolve the doctors from responsibility for their own ignorance?
Modern science considers such ignorance blameworthy and irresponsible because, first, it could have been avoided and corrected through proper epistemic conduct, and second, it harms others and therefore is not innocent.
Many studies have been devoted to decolonizing knowledge and to the concept of “white optics” or “white ignorance,” which allows one to “not see” numerous discriminatory manifestations.
And yet there is still no clear understanding of the place of white Slavic peoples in Europe, who for much of the last few centuries have been more oppressed than oppressors.
The Lack of a Hermeneutical Perspective Toward Ukrainians
The absence of a hermeneutical perspective regarding Ukrainians as Eastern Europeans who, for most of their history, were enslaved, restricted in rights, oppressed, or engaged in struggles against attempts at genocidal extermination has extremely harmful consequences for understanding the present-day Ukrainian condition.
Imposing a Western European optic onto Ukrainians leads to dramatic distortions because Ukrainians historically have been neither a privileged part of the Western world with its colonialism, nor do they identify with the “Russian world” and its imperial ambitions.
Anti-colonial and anti-racist criticism also often misses the mark, since Ukrainians are not “white privileged oppressors.” Therefore, accusations of racism for helping Ukrainian refugees—which are often inflamed by Russian propaganda abroad—are deliberately divisive messages.
At the same time, Ukrainians have never been perceived by the West as a distinct oppressed community, because they were viewed only through the Russian colonial optic as “the edge of Russia” or as “Little Russians.” This was reinforced by both the Soviet myth of the equality of brotherly republics and the Russian myth of the “younger brother.” The current rhetoric of the Russian regime toward Ukrainians is even worse, consisting of the total denial of Ukrainian subjectivity—as “bad Russians” or even as a “virus.”
As a result, Ukrainian identity is extremely blurred in the Western European focus, and in many aspects—including language—there is a blind spot. For example, refugee assistance centers abroad default to offering help from Russian-speaking interpreters. This has led to Ukrainians becoming invisible and unheard in their uniqueness, and being perceived with prejudice or mistrust, while their epistemic status has been downgraded.
Since many Europeans are only now encountering Ukrainians personally for the first time, they often generalize and stereotype based on these interactions. This may give the impression that most Ukrainians are dissatisfied, negative, belligerent, and intolerant. But today’s image of Ukrainians is being shaped by the extraordinary circumstances of resisting an invasion—and by the world’s inadequate response to it—not by any “natural state” of Ukrainians themselves.
Bravery or Belligerence?
At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, social media and lightboxes in European, U.S., and Canadian cities were flooded with the slogan: “Be brave like Ukraine.” The world was amazed by the courage with which Ukrainians resisted an enemy whose territory is over 28 times larger, whose population is five times greater, and whose military is the “second-largest army in the world,” equipped with nuclear weapons.
Yet even this slogan faced criticism, with some saying it “normalizes” and “encourages” continuation of the war—something Europeans hoped never to see again. It’s easy to ignore a war in the center of Europe: just close your eyes to the Ukrainians who have brought their misfortune with them—or blame them for what’s happening.
A Personal Anecdote
“My son, age 10, visibly tenses when I suggest adding a slide with a photo of the destroyed museum to his school presentation in Vienna about the Ukrainian artist Mariia Prymachenko. On February 25, 2022, the museum in the town of Ivankiv, which housed a collection of the artist’s paintings, was destroyed by the Russian army during their advance on Kyiv.
Of course, Austrian teachers and students will love Prymachenko’s fantastical animals, birds, and flowers—works admired by Pablo Picasso. They are colorful and joyful. But why should they see that the artist’s museum was destroyed by Russian soldiers? They might not even like that you mention “Russian”—there’s a Russian student in class, it might make him uncomfortable, and that could be labeled as ‘xenophobia.’”
Even a young child in primary school quickly learns that Ukrainians with “their war” do not fit the standards of pacifist countries—especially German-speaking ones.
Are our feelings forbidden? Of course not. Are they unwanted? Absolutely. Silencing doesn’t require coercion. The victim silences herself—having lost hope of being heard or fearing condemnation.
European Pacifism and the Rejection of Ukrainian Pain
The pacifism of modern Germans and Austrians—their rejection of nationalism a...
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