This study examines how the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent Western responses influence Chinese public opinion on the use of force. Using two original, preregistered online survey experiments, first in June 2022 and then in June 2023, we show that the Russian invasion is associated with a modest but statistically significant increase in Chinese support for using military force in international affairs in general and against Taiwan in particular. However, information on Western military measures aiding Ukraine curbs the modest impact of the invasion. Such information is especially effective in reducing support for an outright military invasion of Taiwan. Causal mediation analyses reveal that the Russian invasion influences public opinion by inducing optimism regarding military success and pessimism regarding peaceful resolution of the conflict. These findings suggest that foreign military aggression and subsequent international countermeasures can sway domestic public opinion on using military force.

This article examines how the identity of the citizens or ‘the people’ of Russia is constructed in the wartime speeches of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Drawing on a discursive approach to populism using post-foundational discourse analysis (PDA), the article first identifies in Zelensky's eve-of-invasion address an antiwar transnational populist construction of a common antiwar interest of ‘ordinary people’ in Russia and Ukraine against the Russian government's overtures towards war. After the full-scale invasion, this construction initially carried over into Zelensky's appeals to ordinary Russians as being under threat from and capable of resisting their own government, before his messaging shifted towards ascribing collective responsibility for the invasion to Russian citizens, following the revelation of the Bucha war crimes. Ultimately, antiwar transnational populism remained a short-lived and contextually bounded phenomenon, limited to an initial phase until early April and briefly resurfacing in Zelensky's appeal to ‘indigenous peoples’ of the Caucasus and Siberia in late September 2022.

The Russian war against Ukraine has challenged fundamental norms such as sovereignty, non-interference and the prohibition of the use of force. It has led to diverse reactions from the international community. Only very few states sided with Russia, some states remained neutral, while the vast majority condemned the attack and supported Ukraine in its right to self-defence. Thus, although there is no legal obligation, many states display behaviour that goes beyond diplomatic support. They support Ukraine financially and even deliver weapons to support Ukraine in its right to self-defence. In this article, we conceptualize different types of actors’ behaviour in world politics. We distinguish between responsible, irresponsible, appropriate, and inappropriate behaviour. We apply this typology to states’ reaction to the Russian war against Ukraine. The typology enables us to analyse the variation of the responses with reference to norms and responsibility, two core concepts of International Relations (IR) Theory and global politics. Counterintuitively as it might seem, we argue that the support of Ukraine with weapons can be categorized as responsible behaviour as it displays an over-fulfilment of the right to self-defence norm, which leads to the emergence of a new norm: the responsibility to support norm.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, numerous Western States have supplied Ukraine with arms, munitions and war material, in ostensible breach of their obligations as neutral, non-participating States. States have failed to provide any legal explanation for such transfers, leaving the task to scholars and commentators to provide legal argumentation as to the compatibility of arms transfers to victims of aggression with neutral duties. This article analyses and seeks to evaluate these arguments in favour of ‘qualified neutrality’ and assess which of the proposed grounds, if any, are the most compelling.