Diversionary Escalation: Theory and Evidence from Eastern Ukraine

When leaders face threats to their authority, escalating foreign conflict can help divert public attention away from domestic grievances. We develop a formal microfoundation for diversionary escalation rooted in a theory of regime change. Although the idea of diversionary escalation is classic, systematic quantitative evidence has been challeng-ing to obtain. Using a new data set of 1.8 million conflict incidents, obtained from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine in 2015–2022, we find evidence that the Russian government strategically employed proxy-initiated separatist violence in Eastern Ukraine to divert attention from domestic unrest and opposition-led protest. We also find a positive link between opposition protest and inflammatory anti-Ukrainian coverage in the Russian media, complementary to battlefield escalation.