United States President Joe Biden came into office believing that the conflict of this century will be between the world's democracies and autocracies.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, on the other hand, has been motivated by a different ideology, ethno-nationalism, in his conflict against Ukraine.

It is a collectivist philosophy with profound roots in Russian history and thought. It is a concept of nationhood and identity based on language, culture, and blood.

Putin has stated numerous times that Ukraine is not a real country, and that Ukrainians are not real people, but rather Russians who are part of a Slavic heartland that also includes Belarus.

Putin wants to strengthen Russia's civilizational border, and he's doing it by invading a sovereign European country, according to Ivan Vejvoda, a senior scholar at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.

In this sense, the conflict is a recolonization war, says Ivan Krastev, capturing regions held by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union.

"Putin would not tolerate it even if Ukraine became autocratic," he added. 

He now blames the Soviet Union as an "oppressor of the Russian people," Krastev, a Bulgarian who is chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, added. "This is an identity conflict for him."

Nations are established on civic duty, the rule of law, and individual and minority rights, including free expression and the right to vote, according to Putin's opponents in Ukraine and the West.

"What Russia is doing here is not simply declaring war on an innocent nation," Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor who has published extensively on Russia and Ukraine, stated.

But he was also critiquing assumptions about a peaceful Europe that respects borders, national sovereignty, and multilateral institutions, Snyder pointed out.

Nathalie Tocci, head of Italy's International Affairs Institute said, the war is about a confrontation of political systems, "a battle against liberal democracy" and Ukraine's right to self-determination.

But, she added, that is just one facet of a bigger conflict in which Putin is attempting to redefine what it means to be sovereign.

Vejvoda, a Serb, points out that former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic abused the concept of ethno-nationalism as well, claiming that the previous Yugoslavia suppressed Serbian identity and desires.

While Milosevic was cynical in his use of such arguments, Putin appears to have swallowed them whole.