This webinar examined how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine reverberated across the domestic politics of European societies, with a particular focus on the Baltics and the Balkans.

In this session, the EU-VALUES Network welcomed Prof. Vassilis Petsinis (Corvinus University of Budapest), who presented key insights from his book Echoes of the War in Ukraine: Political Ramifications in the Baltics and the Balkans (2025). Drawing on a cross-regional comparative approach, Prof. Petsinis analysed how a major international crisis exerted powerful and varied effects on domestic politics in Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, and Serbia—from shifts in party competition and ideological realignment to transformations in public discourse.

The book offered a timely and nuanced account of how the war in Ukraine interacted with—and in some cases intensified—ethno-nationalist, nativist, and Eurosceptic dynamics across different regional contexts. It also explored the role of broader ideational currents, including Occidentalism in Serbia, highlighting how external geopolitical shocks intersected with pre-existing political trends.

The discussion was enriched by Dr. Katarina Damčević (Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies), whose research on the semiotics of hate speech, memory politics, and contested symbols in (post)conflict societies added a valuable perspective. Her reflections underscored how narratives, identity, and symbolic politics shaped—and were shaped by—domestic responses to the war in Ukraine.

🔗 Learn more about the book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-05851-5

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