Abstract
Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has seen a significant rise in national unity rhetoric, designed to bolster public support and resist external aggression. Although crucial for national resilience, this rhetoric has also fostered a discursive landscape where radical right elements—and sometimes, aspects of state rhetoric—have securitized ethnic and linguistic minorities, including Russian speakers, Roma, and Hungarians.
This paper examines how conspiracy-laden narratives—such as claims of “internal saboteurs,” “foreign agents,” or “Russification”—have been used to frame these groups as potential threats to national sovereignty. These narratives are not confined to fringe actors; they circulate widely in digital media, political commentary, and public debate, often blurring the line between legitimate security concerns and conspiratorial thinking. In doing so, they contribute to a broader process of securitization that risks legitimizing exclusionary practices and undermining democratic norms.
The paper explores how this securitization process can serve as a gateway to radicalization—particularly when it enables or justifies forms of digital vigilantism, public shaming, or calls for surveillance and marginalization. It also interrogates the role of the Ukrainian state: while not a radical right regime, the government’s wartime messaging around unity and vigilance can inadvertently echo or amplify radical right framings, raising critical questions about the limits of securitization in democratic societies under existential threat.
Using a qualitative methodology that combines discourse analysis of political and media texts with expert interviews and civil society reports, the study investigates how public discourse navigates the tension between national security and minority inclusion. It argues that the wartime context has enabled the mainstreaming of narratives that, while framed as patriotic, risk alienating segments of the population and embedding exclusionary logics into post-war governance.
This paper contributes to the conference’s aim of understanding how radical right narratives and conspiracism reshape democratic discourse, public trust, and the boundaries of political legitimacy.