Seeking decolonising solidarity: mnemonic diplomacy in Ukraine’s decolonisation project

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how postcolonial states engage in mnemonic diplomacy seeking international solidarity for their decolonisation project. Drawing on the case of Ukraine, the first post-Soviet state to formally codify decolonisation as an overarching political project, it argues that mnemonic diplomacy constitutes the central mechanism through which a postcolonial state constructs its international solidarity appeal. The article proposes a distinction between decolonial solidarity, a horizontal practice among actors who already share decolonial consciousness, and decolonising solidarity, an instrument of an ongoing decolonisation project inviting partners into a solidaristic relationship regardless of their own colonial histories. Drawing on an original corpus of 965 official diplomatic texts and applying a Discourse-Historical Approach, the analysis identifies six thematic blocks of mnemonic argumentation grouped into four analytical clusters through which Ukrainian diplomacy constructs its decolonising solidarity appeal: the mobilisation of traumatic events as moral anchors, the contestation of Russia’s anti-fascist symbolic authority, the explicit decolonial repositioning of Ukraine within global hierarchies of recognition, and the situated incorporation of Ukraine’s struggle into partners’ own liberation memories. The findings demonstrate that decolonial meaning travels without the word ‘decolonisation’, and that its capacity to do so has structural limits determined by the geopolitical positioning of the state that deploys it.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of International Relations and Development, 2026 · DOI ↗