Russia’s war in Ukraine and transformation of EU public diplomacy: challenges and opportunities

ABSTRACT Employing a perceptual approach to EU foreign policy studies, we argue that extensive changes following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 have created important opportunities for diminishing many of the perceptual gaps that existed between the EU and Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea. We distinguish between changes in Ukraine’s and the EU’s attitudes towards each other, contextual changes as a result of the war and changes in EU policy on the candidacy of Ukraine – shifts that open up new avenues for closing existing perceptual gaps but also create challenges for EU diplomacy. We apply this theorisation to understand one aspect of Europe’s transformation in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine – the transformation of the EU’s public diplomacy. We venture that the opportunities for perceptual changes that have occurred may only be realized if the EU commits to a ‘new’ public diplomacy.