Russian and Ukrainian fairytales tell us something unexpected about the war

At the outset of Russia’s invasion, almost no one in the West expected that Ukraine would be able to offer Russia any kind of serious opposition to its unprovoked aggression.

Much has been written about how leaders, including allies, underestimated the leadership ability of Volodymyr Zelensky. But beyond miscalculating how a comedian could transform into a Winston Churchill-like figure, military assessments of the Ukrainian army were also way off.

Several weeks into the war, it’s clear many overestimated the Russian army’s will and capability to fight and the Ukrainian army’s will to resist an opponent superior in number, equipment and positioning.

What can explain the way the Ukraine war has played out, in contradiction to experts’ predictions? We believe that one factor underlying the unexpected performance of each country’s military can be traced to the cultural differences between Russians and Ukrainians. Those differences were cultivated in part through the fairytales of their childhoods.