In February 2022 Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine. Yet the war had really begun in 2014 with the illegal annexation of Crimea and an attack on the Eastern part of Ukraine commonly called Donbas. Yet these “hot wars (cite) followed almost 20 years of Russia attacking Ukraine by trying to weaken the state, seed corruption, and sow chaos through what Russia calls Active Measures (cite) and a show of soft power(cite).

Active Measures (define and cite) around defining Ukraine as a nazi state aligning with the West have played in Russian narratives for 80 years. By examining, one specific element of Russian disinformation, Stepan Bandera, we can examine how Russia attempted to undermine support for Ukraine in Poland and the US, cast Ukraine as far right stae that needed “denazification,” and vilified Ukrainians as a “lessor people” in a stae where Russia gave them “sovereignty.”

Through an historical analysis of watching how the myth of the Banderite came to be we can better understand Russian disinformation campaigns.

(super brief history of Bandera, OUN-A, OUN-B, Polish Massacre, UPA fight for freedom)

The vilification of Stepan Bandera and the UPA grew our of 20 year of active measures by the Government of Russia to paint Ukrainian Nationalists as Nazis and justify Russia's eventual invasion of Ukraine. Russia's efforts in the information space then created a reactionary growth in Bandera as a hero and National symbol in Ukraine.

In order to examine truth unfolding and emerging from Russia, a place where “nothing is true but everything is possible” (Pomerantsev,2022) we apply Deleuze and Guattari concepts of rhizomatic analysis by examining Bandera and the OUN-B not to understand how things are but how the stories come to be. We apply the idea of lines of flight to understand the creative mutations shaping (D&G 1987) how Stepan Bandera and the OUN-B got deployed by State agencies in the act of developing and destroying national identities.

Deleuze and Guattari define topography and rhizomes as any point that “can be connected to anything other, and must be…. A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, social sciences, and social struggles (1987, p. 7).”

Deleuze and Guattari carve reality more as a topography or landscape more than a set reality. We wish to establish that Russia utilized Bandera as a semiotic chain linking to a paranoia of Ukrainan nationalism that goes back centuries. As an organization of power Russia utilized false narratives to try and create a landscape they envisioned. Yes truth gets influenced by one's path in a particular point of the landscape but line of flight can not be forced.

A ‘line of flight” in this topography is a new path created through the mutation caused be a new actualization of connections. These connections existed before, only implicitly. A line of flight emerges when someone with agency begins to act and respond to these new connections and thus changes their path on the landscape. Russia attempted to seed both implicit and actaualized connections to create a landscape of truth around Nazis in Ukraine that never existed.

Specifically we rely on Deleuze's interpretation of Lebinz' monad in “The Fold.” Deleuze redefined Leibniz's monad as folds of space, movement and time.Based on Deleuze interpretation the world emerges as a body of infinite folds that weave through compressed time and space. Yet what happens to folds when the lines of flight get forced into convergent paths through active measures in preparation of war?

Deleuze and Guattari warn that forcing lines of flight lead to regressive transformations. This can cause highly rigid segments (D&G 1987: 205) such as Russian narratives about the need to denazify Ukraine. These efforts to force a narrative through disinformation become a line of destruction (D&G 1987: 229) that history will eventually unfold. We argue Russia's modern interpretation of needing to destroy modernity to restore a world of traditionalism relies on the application of post-modern intepretations. This paradox leads to regressive transformations such as the rise of far-right extremisism or the invasion of Ukraine.

• -Russia and Ukraine (brief)
• * Three Peoples and Imperialism
• * Ukrainian Nationalism-Germany and Poland
• -Reflexive Control and The Deconstruction of Modernity

rhizoanalysis provides us with a tool to examine the story of Stepan Bandera ad a narrative performance to understand the Affective intensities (Coleman, 2005) of Russian disinformation campaigns. Russia created a series of Nazi narrative performances, not so much as plan, but a series of folding monads. Self contained lies which in turn had explict connections to other lies to create a new truth that did not exist before. An analysis of how these monads and lines of flight apply help us understand how Russia tries to cast Ukraine as a Nazi state through the narrative of Stepan Bandera. While Russian disinformation tries to establish relationships built through unpredictable texts movements Russia took advantage of places where hate thrives and community is cultivated.

We also look to rhizoanalysis as we find the “space,” rather than the individuals truth ,or even history, more as the variable of interest for our flights of inquiry. We do not seek to answer, “Was Stepan Bandera a Nazi?” but rather to utilize rhizoanalysis as a tool to understand how Russia manipulates the power behind not “what is” but rather “what could be and could have been.” In other words, or research does not seek to understand the truth but more the textual moves Russia made to shape the folds of monads to their own desgin.

This focus on becoming rather than being is an essential rejection of representational logic (Leander & Rowe, 2006) and also a central reality necessary for studying the unreality that is Modern Russia. Using Deleuze and Guattari’s work on rhizomes allowed us to understand the non linear relationships and how they interact in the creation of false Nazi narratives in Ukraine.

In the establishment of these rhizomes Deleuze and Guattari discuss how the the multiplicity of lines that spread in every direction (Leander & Rowe, 2006). These lines represent connections between people and signs. In rhizomatic analysis it is these lines, these connections and middles that represent areas of inquiry. As these lines break or continue to grow anew (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) asignifying ruptures exist.

These breaks delineate identities from the norm. They are based on two major types of lines that as noted continually spread: lines of segmentarity, which organize social assemblages into stasis and rigid patterns; and lines of flight that are “are leaks, escapes, or departures from the territories drawn by dominant systems of signification.” In rhizoanalysis you often attempt to map these lines your inquiry

• Google Scholar results based on time period
• Google Trend Results based on time period
• Wikipedia edit history
• Articles published in known Russian disinformation sources
• 27,000 tweets with the phrase “ukronazi” collected in Month of Feb 2023