Nadiia Bureiko

While before the beginning of the full-scale war, Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russia’s invasion was frequently underestimated with some predicting Kyiv would be captured in a couple of days, Ukraine has shown astute resilience and managed to rally global support. This has significantly resulted in improving Ukraine’s image abroad when Ukraine made it to the top 20 world influential countries, ranking 19 out of 121 according to the 2023 Global Soft Power Index. Concurrently, external perceptions of Ukraine still remain often stereotyped by Russian-driven narratives. Against this backdrop, the proposed research project inquires how Ukraine is currently perceived abroad and what factors influence these perceptions. The main argument is that Ukraine’s increased visibility is not only impacted by the ongoing war but has become a result of Ukraine’s synergetic efforts launched before Russia’s full-scale invasion. The proposed study will arguably make an important empirical and methodological contribution to the literature on external perceptions. To date, the external perceptions of Ukraine have been captured merely at the level of policy-oriented analysis. Moreover, the case of Ukraine could be instructive particularly today, providing a rich context for testing how the state’s image is projected externally in times of war.

 Website address: https://prismua.org/en/team/nadiia-bureiko/