Between stability and uncertainty: The proletariat, the precariat, and the new reality of Ukraine

The essay is devoted to analyzing the transformations of the social structure of Ukrainian society in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war as an event that is not only a military or political fact, but also a profound “historical shift” capable of radically changing social relations, forms of employment, and mechanisms of social mobility. The author proceeds from the assumption that war creates a state of prolonged uncertainty, which should be viewed not as a temporary anomaly, but as a new social reality within which class categories and social subjectivity are being rethought. The theoretical focus is on the categories of “proletariat” and “precariat”, which are used as analytical tools to understand changes in Ukraine’s social landscape. Drawing on classical and contemporary sociological approaches (Marxist, Weberian, Bourdieusian traditions, as well as Guy Standing’s concept of the precariat), the author demonstrates that these categories are neither mutually exclusive nor static. On the contrary, in a situation of war, a complex space of intersection, interpenetration, and mutual transformation is formed between them. The essay argues that the Russian-Ukrainian war does not lead to a simple replacement of the proletariat by the precariat but rather initiates a process of hybridization of social classes, within which stability and instability coexist within the life strategies of the same social actors. The war acts as a catalyst for rethinking social structures, forcing a re-examination of established notions of class, labor, and social subjectivity in contemporary Ukraine.