Episode 294: Russian Culture War with Olha Mukha
Coordinated and Produced by Elisa Garbil
In this episode, we journey into the heart of a cultural battleground shaped by war, identity, and resistance with Olha Mukha. Our conversation unpacks how Ukraine’s cultural resilience has become a force of national survival, even as attempts at cultural erasure intensify. We explore grassroots efforts to preserve language, art, and memory, alongside the quieter, yet powerful, ways communities refuse to let their heritage be rewritten.
The discussion also turns to Russia, where artistic expression faces tightening suppression and where acts of creativity have become acts of rebellion. We trace surprising cultural parallels that surface amid conflict, the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in shaping wartime narratives, and the ways cultural diplomacy and propaganda intertwine on the global stage. Finally, we examine the long history of suppressing Ukrainian culture and look ahead: What might the future hold for Ukrainian society, identity, and artistic life once the war’s dust settles? A thoughtful, far-reaching exploration of culture as both a battlefield and a beacon.
Olha Mukha, PhD, is a cultural analyst and philosopher, cultural manager, curator and expert on international communication and human rights. Known for her extensive work in cultural diplomacy and human rights. She is Co-Founder and Programme Director of the Ukrainian Association of Cultural Studies – Lviv and Head of Educational and International Department of Memorial Museum “Territory of Terror”. Senior Strategist at strategic communications (IN2). She is an expert in crisis communication, creating participant journeys for sensitive topics, aesthetic perception, and memory studies, including oral history practices.
The International Risk Podcast brings you conversations with global experts, frontline practitioners, and senior decision-makers who are shaping how we understand and respond to international risk. From geopolitical volatility and organised crime, to cybersecurity threats and hybrid warfare, each episode explores the forces transforming our world and what smart leaders must do to navigate them. Whether you’re a board member, policymaker, or risk professional, The International Risk Podcast delivers actionable insights, sharp analysis, and real-world stories that matter.
Dominic Bowen is the host of The International Risk Podcast and Europe’s leading expert on international risk and crisis management. As Head of Strategic Advisory and Partner at one of Europe’s leading risk management consulting firms, Dominic advises CEOs, boards, and senior executives across the continent on how to prepare for uncertainty and act with intent. He has spent decades working in war zones, advising multinational companies, and supporting Europe’s business leaders. Dominic is the go-to business advisor for leaders navigating risk, crisis, and strategy; trusted for his clarity, calmness under pressure, and ability to turn volatility into competitive advantage. Dominic equips today’s business leaders with the insight and confidence to lead through disruption and deliver sustained strategic advantage.
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Transcript:
Olha Mukha: But there is also massive oppression of Russian culture and Russian artists inside Russia. They can’t truly create, because creating is an act of freedom. You can’t create according to a strict prompt — then you become artificial intelligence, right? And even to follow prompts requires some quality.
Elisa Garbil: Welcome back to the International Risk Podcast, where we discuss the latest world news and significant events that impact businesses and organizations worldwide.
Dominic Bowen: What if the front line of this war isn’t Kyiv, Odessa, or Avdiivka, but instead museums, school curriculums, and religious sites across Ukraine? I’m Dominic Bowen, and today we’re looking at how Russia has turned culture into a weapon — not only against Ukraine, but against the norms and institutions that underpin societies everywhere. When culture, history, and faith are systematically manipulated, we’re no longer talking about soft power; we’re talking about a strategic attack on identity, memory, and social cohesion. This isn’t new — Russia and the Soviet Empire have used these tactics for centuries — and the implications affect governments, businesses, and anyone assessing risk across Europe and beyond.
To help us understand this cultural battlefield I’m joined by Dr. Olha Mukha — a cultural analyst, philosopher and strategist based in Lviv. She co-founded the Ukrainian Association of Cultural Studies and heads Education and International Cooperation at the Territory of Terror Memorial Museum. Olha has worked at the intersection of culture, memory and human rights for years and has watched up close how Russia’s culture war is reshaping risk today.
Dr. Mukha, welcome to the International Risk Podcast.
Olha Mukha: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Dominic Bowen: You’re speaking to us today from London?
Olha Mukha: Yes — I divide my time between London and Lviv. My daughter and I moved to London in 2018, but since the full-scale invasion I’ve spent even more time in Ukraine than in the UK.
Dominic Bowen: Thanks for joining us. I just got back from Ukraine. My schedule when travelling is usually intense — 18-hour days — but I always try to make time for museums and galleries. On my last trip I visited the Lviv Historical Museum, the National Art Gallery, several exhibitions around Rynok Square, and one of my favourites, the Jam Factory Art Center. Culture in Ukraine is extraordinary. It doesn’t stop at galleries: just before curfew near the Lviv Opera House there were buskers and people dancing in the street. That experience left me convinced that Ukraine isn’t only resilient — it cherishes music, community, language and culture. I’ve worked all over the world, but Ukraine stands out.
Olha Mukha: There are a few reasons. Ukrainians have long been deeply engaged with their national culture — this didn’t begin with the full-scale invasion. From my childhood every celebration and gathering had cultural meaning. Books were the best gift for St. Nicholas — and I’m still packing books for my daughter.
Today there’s also a renewed sense of agency: Ukrainians are re-establishing cultural agency, partly because of war and partly because of decolonisation. It’s an ironic, painful truth that Putin has accelerated the awakening of a Ukrainian national idea. People now deliberately choose Ukrainian products, fashion, podcasts, literature and poetry — poetry is booming. Publishing presses keep working despite shelling. When a major printing factory — one that prints a large share of school textbooks — was struck, people began pre-ordering books in mass to keep the industry alive. I bought about 30 books myself; I’ve received 15 so far. That is how people invest in culture and sustain businesses during crisis.
Dominic Bowen: That’s such a strong image — books as gifts and lifelines. Ola, can you take us to a moment when you realised culture had become a battlefield? What made it unmistakable that Russia was deliberately attacking Ukrainian culture?
Olha Mukha: A clear moment was the London Book Fair in 2022. I’m a PEN Ukraine member and had worked at PEN International in London. We were collecting book donations for Ukrainian libraries and many people asked, “Is this necessary in wartime? Who will read books?” They didn’t grasp how essential books are. Books don’t need power or internet; they provide comfort in blackout conditions and peace for children in shelters.
The turning point was when colleagues from occupied Kherson reported that Russian forces were throwing out and burning Ukrainian-language books — children’s books and history volumes alike. That was not collateral damage; it was deliberate erasure.
We started collecting books in London — two cardboard boxes at first — and then partnered with Book Aid International. When they asked how many books Ukraine needed, I said “25,000 minimum.” They were surprised. British publishers helped, and we delivered around 40,000 books to frontline libraries and cultural centres. Those books were gratefully adopted by communities where they were desperately needed.
Museums were targeted too. Small regional museums with no military objects nearby were shelled — deliberate cultural attacks. The Shchors Museum, the Ivanivka local history museum, memorials in Mariupol: many sites were destroyed. In Crimea, the Khan’s Palace — a cornerstone of Crimean Tatar heritage — was damaged and its narrative reworked into a fabricated “ancient Russian” history. It’s absurd to anyone who knows history, but it’s effective propaganda.
Dominic Bowen: I remember the strikes on Odesa museums, especially the Fine Arts Museum in 2023. What struck me was the community response — people rushed in to rescue artworks and returned them to safety. It was incredible.
Olha Mukha: Yes — we documented that in our “Bonded Culture” project. I recorded the security guard who was there the night the museum was hit. He said, “Who else, if not me?” That sense of personal responsibility is everywhere. Museum workers, volunteers and civilians have risked their lives to save collections. A random passerby recalled visiting a museum as a child, then offered his car to evacuate artworks. Those acts of community are powerful.
Even when buildings were destroyed, we created 3D digital walkthroughs to keep memory alive. Workers said, “We cried, but we could not stop; we had to save what we could.” The cultural resilience is extraordinary.
Dominic Bowen: For listeners who think culture is only festivals and galleries, what are they missing about how Moscow uses culture as a weapon?
Olha Mukha: They’re missing the scale and deliberateness. Russia constructed the myth of “Great Russian Culture” over centuries. Much of what’s promoted as Russian was taken from Ukraine, the Caucasus and Indigenous peoples. This cultural appropriation erases other identities.
Before the invasion, airports and advertising pushed Russian ballet, Russian art and Russian avant-garde, overshadowing neighbours. In one ICOM meeting a Swiss curator asked me, “Do Ukrainians have real culture?” — that ignorance shows how successful Russian cultural propaganda has been.
Western institutions sometimes give platforms to artists who collaborated with occupation forces, which normalises aggression and demonstrates a lack of accountability. Cultural diplomacy creates prestige, shapes perceptions and softens political pressure. But this isn’t simply soft power — it’s weaponised culture.
Dominic Bowen: What about dissidents inside Russia? How are dissenting artists and institutions treated?
Olha Mukha: The list of those able to dissent is short. PEN Moscow is largely silent. People are arrested for “likes” or for donating to human rights groups; organisations like OVD-Info are criminalised. Society is structured for suppression.
Artistic creation requires freedom. Under severe repression, the quality of culture deteriorates, and cultural theft becomes a solution: when you can’t create, you appropriate. Many Russians genuinely don’t know what was taken from whom. As a child I thought Buratino (a Soviet Pinocchio variant) was a Soviet original — only later did I learn it’s borrowed. That pattern repeats across music, literature and public symbols.
Artists in occupied territories resist in small ways — posters that say “Just pretend everything is fine,” installations that make people reflect. They risk arrest. I asked an artist in Crimea what the hardest part of “pretending” every day was; he said, “The mask sticks to you. Each evening you must remind yourself who you are.” That cognitive occupation is something free societies rarely consider.
Dominic Bowen: Let’s talk about the Russian Orthodox Church. How has its language been used to justify the war and support the Kremlin?
Olha Mukha: The Church plays a dual role: moral legitimiser and mechanism of domestic control. Patriarch Kirill and parts of the Church frame the war as a righteous struggle to defend “traditional Russian values” against a decadent West. That gives a divine veneer to violence.
The Church enjoys high public trust in Russia and reinforces conservative identity and purpose. Practically, clergy have sometimes passed information that aided military operations; arrests in Ukraine have shown that some clergy shared sites and coordinates. So the Church is ideological support and operational support for the Kremlin.
Dominic Bowen: How does today’s cultural diplomacy differ from Soviet cultural diplomacy?
Olha Mukha: Fundamentally, it’s similar. The Soviet Union used culture to export ideology and project power. Contemporary Russia continues that strategy — but with large budgets and new tools. Ballet, literature, cinema and other cultural exports build prestige. Repetition and high production values make narratives seem true. Even sanctions haven’t stopped this: Russia’s state media and external messaging budgets remain substantial — recent figures show very large allocations for propaganda spending.
The tactic is simple but effective: make the culture likable, enigmatic and prestigious, then the audience slowly accepts other narratives on political matters. People like the art, they feel affinity, and the narrative becomes normalized.
Dominic Bowen: Historically, Russia has repeatedly sought to suppress Ukrainian language and culture — from 18th-century bans on teaching and publishing in Ukrainian through Stalin’s repression and the Holodomor, to post-war Soviet policies and today’s attacks on schools, museums and villages. Looking ahead — to 2030 and 2040 — what will repeated attempts to erase cultural identity do to Ukrainian society and to the wider region?
Olha Mukha: First — thank you for that historical overview. The campaign to suppress Ukrainian language has been repeated over 130 times historically. The persistence of Ukrainian identity despite this is remarkable.
Language is central to national identity: when you speak, sing and share stories in your language you define who you are. After 2022, there was a wave where hearing Russian on the street in Kyiv felt unusual; people consciously shifted towards Ukrainian as a signaling and safety measure. Over time, that normalised Ukrainian more widely. Ukraine’s national idea is not ethnic; it’s civic and inclusive — it embraces Crimean Tatars, Jewish communities, Gagauz and other minorities. Ukrainian identity is a political choice as much as a cultural one.
In the next decade or two we won’t see everyone suddenly switch languages — that’s naive. But we’ll see Ukrainian gain prestige and utility: Ukrainian books, designers, musicians and creators are now seen as viable and desirable, something young people want to be part of. That’s how you win hearts. The risk, of course, is the social strain from prolonged warfare: people become more inward, protective, and sometimes harsher in daily life. But the long-term cultural renaissance and reclaiming of language and heritage are likely to be profound.
Dominic Bowen: Globally, what risks worry you most?
Olha Mukha: Disinformation and poor information hygiene. People feel lost and don’t know what to trust, which makes them vulnerable to manipulation. We saw this in elections and geopolitics: emotion and algorithmic repetition can distort truth. My big hope is for education — critical thinking courses in schools and universities, training in informational hygiene and fact checking. That’s the foundation to resist manipulation and to keep societies committed to justice and the common good rather than retreating into narrow self-interest.
Dominic Bowen: Thank you, Olha. That was a powerful conversation.
Olha Mukha: Thank you. Remember — Ukraine is a place where ideas start. We’re resource-limited but forced to innovate, and we’re generous in sharing the results — from ideas to, sadly, weapons because that is our current reality. Thinking about risks and what we would do in those scenarios is the best risk assessment. It prompts each of us to consider our personal responsibility.
Dominic Bowen: That was Dr. Olha Mukha — co-founder of the Ukrainian Association of Cultural Studies and head of Education and International Cooperation at the Territory of Terror Memorial Museum. This conversation is a reminder that culture in modern conflict isn’t merely collateral damage — it can be a primary target. If you work in government, media, education or any institution shaping narratives, this isn’t a distant problem. It’s a strategic risk that matters across Europe and North America.
If you found this episode useful, please share it. This episode was produced and coordinated by Elisa Garbil and the video content by Stephen Penny. I’m Dominic Bowen — thanks for listening.
Elisa Garbil: Thank you for listening to the International Risk Podcast. For more episodes and articles visit internationalriskpodcast.com. Follow us on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram for updates and to ask questions of our host, Dominic Bowen. See you next time.
