Ukraine and the existential struggle for freedom

By Matthew Parish, Associate Editor

Thursday 6 August 2026

The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, whose work reshaped how humanity understands the hidden motives of the mind, once observed that “people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility and most people are frightened of responsibility.”   This deceptively simple aphorism, drawn from the psychological architecture he spent a lifetime excavating, offers a striking lens through which to consider the war in Ukraine — a conflict that is, at its core, a struggle over the meaning and burden of freedom itself.

Freud’s intellectual legacy rests upon the proposition that human beings are not fully rational actors. Beneath conscious intentions lie fears, compulsions, and a deep aversion to uncertainty. His theory of the unconscious suggests that individuals often flee from the very autonomy they profess to desire, because autonomy demands accountability — for choices, for risks, and for consequences.   In peacetime societies, this manifests in subtle ways: a preference for routine over change, for authority over ambiguity. In wartime, however, these psychological tendencies are magnified into matters of life and death.

Ukraine’s modern history — particularly since 2014 — can be read as a sustained assertion that freedom is worth its cost. The country’s repeated acts of political self-determination, from the Maidan Revolution to the resistance following the full-scale invasion of 2022, demonstrate a collective willingness to accept precisely the responsibility Freud believed most people would avoid. Freedom, in the Ukrainian case, is not an abstract ideal but a daily burden — paid in mobilisation orders, economic hardship, and the omnipresent risk of violence.

In this respect Ukraine stands in contrast not merely to her adversary, but to a broader historical pattern. Freud’s observation helps explain why authoritarian systems persist even when they impose evident constraints. Authority relieves the individual of responsibility; it offers clarity, even if that clarity is imposed through coercion. In the context of contemporary Russia, governance has often been framed in terms of stability, order, and national destiny — concepts that substitute for individual agency and thus reduce the psychological strain associated with freedom. The population is not necessarily devoid of a desire for autonomy, but that desire competes with a powerful instinct to avoid the burdens that autonomy entails.

Freud would likely have interpreted this dynamic as a form of collective defence mechanism — a retreat into structures that mitigate anxiety. His broader theory of repression suggests that individuals, and by extension societies, conceal uncomfortable truths in order to maintain psychic equilibrium. In wartime Russia, the realities of the conflict — casualties, economic strain, international isolation — are often mediated through narratives that reduce cognitive dissonance. The state assumes responsibility for meaning, thereby sparing individuals from confronting the full implications of their political condition.

Yet Freud’s pessimism about human appetite for freedom is not absolute. His work also implies that under sufficient pressure, the unconscious can no longer sustain its illusions. Repressed tensions surface — sometimes violently — when reality becomes too insistent to ignore. Here, the war in Ukraine may represent not only a geopolitical struggle but a psychological inflection point. The longer the conflict persists, the more difficult it becomes for any society involved to evade the responsibilities it entails.

For Ukrainians, this confrontation with responsibility has been immediate and inescapable. Civilian populations have been drawn into the machinery of national survival, blurring the line between private life and public duty. The decision to remain in a city under bombardment, to volunteer for military service, or to continue economic activity under wartime conditions are all expressions of agency — and therefore of responsibility. Freud’s insight would suggest that such widespread acceptance of responsibility is exceptional rather than typical.

The paradox, then, is that Ukraine’s struggle embodies a form of psychological maturity that Freud believed rare. It is a society that, under extreme duress, has chosen to embrace the burden of freedom rather than retreat from it. This does not imply the absence of fear — indeed, Freud would insist that fear is ever-present — but rather the conscious decision to act despite it.

At the same time, Freud’s warning lingers as a cautionary note for the future. Freedom achieved through sacrifice must still be sustained in peace, where the temptations to relinquish responsibility may re-emerge in more subtle forms. Post-war reconstruction, democratic governance, and integration into European institutions will all require a continued willingness to bear the weight of autonomy. The danger lies not only in external threats but in the internal fatigue that prolonged responsibility can produce.

Freud’s remark transcends its psychological origins to become a political insight. Freedom is not merely seized; she must be maintained — and maintenance demands effort, vigilance, and accountability. The war in Ukraine illustrates both the rarity and the necessity of societies that accept this burden.

Freud, writing in a very different age, could scarcely have imagined the specific circumstances of twenty-first century Eastern Europe. Yet his understanding of human reluctance remains uncannily relevant. If most people are indeed frightened of responsibility, then Ukraine’s experience stands as a powerful counterexample — a demonstration that, under certain conditions, a nation may choose not the comfort of submission but the perilous dignity of freedom.