The article examines the interconnection and transformation of political mentality, political consciousness, culture, and political activity as key factors in ensuring Ukraine’s national security under conditions of full-scale war. It emphasizes that the current National Security Strategy of Ukraine pays insufficient attention to the development of citizens’ political consciousness and culture, although these components largely determine the level of societal resilience to internal and external threats. It is argued that in wartime, not only military and economic potential gains importance, but also value-based, worldview, and cultural-identity factors.
The study substantiates the need to take into account the traditional characteristics of Ukrainian political mentality, as these shape the deep cognitive and value-based orientations of political perception and are conditioned by historical experience and the political and cultural traditions of society. The article analyzes contemporary features of the formation of political consciousness as a mechanism through which citizens interpret political reality and understand their own agency and role within it, particularly in the context of post-truth, information warfare, propaganda, disinformation, and fragmented (“clip-like”) thinking.
The transformation of the political culture of Ukrainian society is highlighted – from the predominance of paternalistic attitudes (formed during the Soviet period under the influence of the USSR) in the first decades of independence to an increasingly pronounced activist type of political culture among citizens (shaped by the information, hybrid, and full-scale war with the Russian Federation). This shift is manifested in the growth of self-organization, volunteer movements, civic participation, responsibility, and awareness of individual agency.
A comprehensive transformation of political mentality, consciousness, and culture is presented as an integrated system whose functioning ensures not only the political socialization of citizens but also the formation of stable patterns of social behavior. The development of this system is considered a necessary condition for ensuring the internal resilience of the state and the consolidation of society in order to effectively counter contemporary security challenges.
It is demonstrated that the functioning of this system has direct significance for national security, as it contributes to the rationalization of public perceptions of political processes, the strengthening of national unity, the countering of hostile propaganda and manipulation, the fostering of an active civic stance, the conscious exercise of rights and responsibilities by citizens, and the enhancement of social cohesion, mobilization capacity, and the long-term resilience of the state to crises and threats.

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