War with Ukraine in Russian public opinion Despite the fact that anti-Ukrainian sentiments have been heated by Russian state media in the mid-2000s, these efforts had not had such a significant effect, until in the 2010s propaganda connected the theme of “Ukrainian nationalism” and “fascism”, destroying a sense of unity with Ukrainians, writes Lev Gudkov, the scientific director of the Levada Center, in the article “Three Phases of Adaptation”.