Description
This paper interrogates the idealised and depoliticised use of “honour” in IR theory in relation to the trajectory of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Existing accounts view Russia’s foreign policy through honour as a civilisational or status-seeking motive, overlooking its hierarchical, affective and gendered dimensions.
I propose a differentiated honour-conflict framework, distinguishing between equal/equal, superior/subordinate, and masculinised/feminised interactions, each with distinct injuries, emotions and modes of restoration. Within Russia’s symbolic order, political legitimacy and national pride have long been tied to performances of strength, control and paternal protection, while Ukraine has been devalorised and discursively feminised through familial metaphors: a dependent “younger sister,” “wayward daughter,” or “disloyal bride” seduced by the West.
Drawing on ongoing discourse analysis of elite speeches, ideological essays and media commentary from 2021–2023, this study traces the rhetorical evolution from fraternal rescue to an annihilatory struggle to restore wounded masculine honour. The paper theorises Russia’s genocidal turn as an affective response to perceived dishonour, where restoration takes the form of punishment, degradation and erasure.