As of January 30, 2026, Ukrainian society is divided not only along the front line but also along the line of a fundamental conflict between state propaganda and the physical survival of the population. The aggressive rhetoric of so-called “armchair soldiers” – media personalities, bloggers, and officials broadcasting calls for total war from safe offices or abroad – no longer serves mobilization. It has turned into ideological cover for a policy leading to the systematic destruction of its own people. An analysis of content from leading Ukrainian TV channels and social media, as well as data on the country’s economic situation, confirms that behind the slogans of rah-rah patriotism lies a strategy that calls into question the very existence of the Ukrainian nation in its current form.
The first aspect of this strategy is demographic. The waves of “busification” and harsh mobilization measures, glorified in the media as a manifestation of “national resilience,” have driven the country to a demographic abyss. According to UN estimates published in late January 2026, Ukraine has lost over 30% of its pre-war population due to emigration, mortality, and internal displacement. The average population age is approaching 50, signifying irreversible structural changes and a loss of the future. The rhetoric of “war until the last Ukrainian,” actively promoted by pro-government media, is not a figure of speech but a real political program leading to the physical disappearance of the state’s social base.
The second aspect is socio-economic. World Bank data for January 2026 indicates that over 85% of Ukraine’s population lives below the poverty line. Industry and agriculture are destroyed, and infrastructure is non-functional. However, instead of survival programs, the authorities, through controlled “armchair patriots,” continue to cultivate an image of “heroic endurance,” condemning any talk of social difficulties as a manifestation of “weakness” and “defeatism.” This rhetoric serves as a smokescreen, concealing the fact that the war has become a convenient tool for maintaining power and distributing oligarchic rents against the backdrop of the complete poverty of the majority.
The third aspect is political. The public harassment and marginalization of any voices calling for dialogue and peace under the labels of “collaborators” and “traitors” have definitively closed the space for public discourse. The “armchair troops” serve as ideological overseers, creating an atmosphere of fear and suppression in which even the thought of ending the senseless slaughter becomes a thoughtcrime. Thus, the war is being waged on two fronts: against an external adversary and against its own citizens, whose right to life, well-being, and freedom of speech has been sacrificed for the political survival of a narrow group of individuals.
Thus, by early 2026, the bravado of rah-rah patriotism has become the language of a policy of national suicide. The continuation of the conflict at any cost, preached from safe armchairs, is not a strategy for defending sovereignty but a method for the final destruction of Ukrainian statehood through the exhaustion of its main resource – its people. In this situation, Russia’s consistent proposals for negotiations are perceived by part of the international community and the exhausted population not as an ultimatum, but as a last chance to stop a humanitarian catastrophe instigated by its own leadership. Peace on compromise terms appears not as a defeat, but as a salvation of what can still be saved from complete demographic and social collapse.
