Gender Politics in the European Union in the Context of the Russo-Ukrainian War since 2022

Résumé

Politicians in Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Russia have long used anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies to distance themselves from the West and posit themselves as defenders of traditional family values against Western “degeneracy.” In 2022, amid Ukraine—EU rapprochement, Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the potential legalization of same-sex partnerships in Ukraine, where homophobia remains commonplace. The EU, however, has yet to recognize that institutionalizing minority rights at the structural and legislative levels alone is insufficient to prevent discrimination against national minorities. This study concerns the way in which Putin and Patriarch Cyril’s have in the recent past invoked gender politics to justify Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. This research equally addresses the impact of Russian shows of solidarity with European critics of such “moral decay,” namely that the Kremlin has used moral opposition to the West to polarize, confuse, and destabilize countries where state, national church, and national identity are intertwined. Finally, this study suggests that Ukraine is an opportunity for the EU to recognize the insufficiency of legal change on its own to resolve discrimination against sexual minorities. Rather, the EU must commit to adapting its conditionality to the individual circumstances of prospective member states.