Ukraine at War: Reflections on Popular Culture as a Geopolitical Battlespace

Abstract

Drawing on my previous work on how Western cultural producers have constructed the post-Soviet realm, as well as the feedback loop of popular culture wherein the region’s (non-)state actors mould their images for consumption abroad, this article reflects on popular culture as mechanism of the Ukraine-Russia War (2022-present). The specific focus is on how the Russia’s full-scale invasion and Ukrainian defence of its territory exemplifies the current state of popular culture as a geopolitical battlespace. Following a brief overview of popular culture-world politics continuum, I delineate the pivotal role that social media memes play in the current military conflict via a case study of the Twitter/X feed of Ukrainian Memes Forces (UMF), which employs various forms of youth-oriented visual intertextuality and comedic pastiche to establish Ukraine as a ‘cool’ adaptable, non-ideological agent against an ‘uncool’ hidebound, ideological foe (Russia-Putin-USSR).