Authors

Discussion

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Russian political leadership has been faced with an acute strategic question: How to morally mobilise the civilian population and members of the armed forces for the war effort. Moral mobilisation refers to the process of convincing a target audience that it is justified to take a certain action. Drawing on components of resource mobilisation theory and Russian scholarship on moral and psychological mobilisation during the Second World War, this paper aims to describe the current implicit model of moral mobilisation as implemented by the Russian state. Elements of the model include, for example, the Russian Orthodox pseudo-theological justifications for the war of aggression and the military-patriotic programmes (for civilians) and military clergy (in the armed forces) used to spread the message to target audiences.