YouTube: “Thinking together with Yevhen Golovakha”

The YouTube channel of the well-known political scientist and public figure Ihor Yakovenko, who is in open opposition to the Kremlin and lives in emigration, has published his interview entitled “Thinking together with Yevhen Golovakha”.

The former secretary-general of the Russian Union of Journalists opened the conversation by asking the head of Ukraine's academic sociology: what changes have taken place in Ukrainian society over these more than a thousand days of open large-scale war by the Russian Federation against Ukraine? What has happened to Ukrainian society in that time?

The Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor Golovakha recalled that in 2022 the situation was terrifying, since after the full-scale invasion Ukraine for a time risked losing its statehood, when the occupiers' forward units came right up to Kyiv. Yet public attitudes at that time were positive, and assessments of the state's effectiveness were very high on every parameter. This was an astonishing phenomenon, connected in a certain way with the shock euphoria society experienced once it became convinced that we could repel the invasion. Both self-assessment and the assessment of state institutions rose sharply. The admiration of our Western partners, who at first did not believe in our capacity, also played a part.

These attitudes held for quite a long time but gradually began to shift towards realism. Society's psychological and social resilience held, however, despite constant stress. Assessments of political institutions declined; a time of stern realism arrived. Assessments of the Armed Forces and of civil society, though, remained fairly high. The army, entrepreneurs and workers, the intelligentsia, the peasantry — these are the groups that have come to the forefront of social life, which differs considerably from the situation before the full-scale invasion.

The problems of mobilisation and of adequately replenishing combat resources remain acute.

The interviewer was struck by the fact that the intelligentsia in Ukraine, as a social group, has come fourth after the three named above, since among our northern neighbours the attitude towards the intelligentsia is dismissive.

Golovakha stressed that particular respect is observed towards the rural intelligentsia, and especially towards teachers.

The interlocutors also discussed the fact that more Ukrainians now incline towards the need for talks, but Golovakha stressed that practically no one in Ukraine wants talks on Putin's ultimatum terms; on what terms they are ready is a difficult question that will yet be debated.

Yakovenko raised the question of the so-called “spiral of silence” in surveys in Ukraine. Golovakha observed that this problem does exist, since it is universal and exists in all countries, although in Ukraine people are not persecuted for their views.

On the so-called “routinisation” of the war, the Director of the Institute referred to a book the Institute's staff is preparing for publication, in which precisely the “routinisation of emergency” is analysed.

Commenting on the Ukrainian authorities' information policy on the example of the telethon “United News”, Golovakha observed that trust in the media is falling and that this format may perhaps be exhausting itself, so that a move to more pluralistic forms of presenting information is needed. War, however, is always accompanied by greater control over information policy.

As for possible dates for the end of the war, the professor ventured to predict that, given serious support from Western partners, it might be 2026.

Yakovenko thanked Golovakha for a substantive conversation.

The fuller material is here:

Watch the video on YouTube