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Vladimir Putin's speech attempting to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine glorified Russia's history. He denied that Ukraine had a history of its own. Observers saw this desire to erase Ukraine from history as significant. It showed that Mr. Putin was attempting to do more than to reinstate the the Soviet Union, that he was attempting to replace the cultures of other ethnic groups in what had once been the Soviet Union with the Russian culture.
This article gives some background on the reality of the history of Ukraine and Russia.
"Ukraine and Russia share roots stretching back to the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus, a Medieval empire founded by Vikings in the 9th century.
But the historical reality of Ukraine is complicated, a thousand-year history of changing religions, borders and peoples. The capital, Kyiv, was established hundreds of years before Moscow, and both Russians and Ukrainians claim it as a birthplace of their modern cultures, religion and language.
Kyiv was ideally situated along the trade routes that developed in the ninth and 10th centuries, and flourished only to see its economic influence diminish as trade shifted elsewhere. The many conquests by warring factions and Ukraine’s diverse geography — with farmland, forests and a maritime environment on the Black Sea — created a complex fabric of multiethnic states.
The history and culture of Russia and Ukraine are indeed intertwined — they share the same Orthodox Christian religion, and their languages, customs and national cuisines are related."
This article gives some background on the reality of the history of Ukraine and Russia.
"Ukraine and Russia share roots stretching back to the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus, a Medieval empire founded by Vikings in the 9th century.
But the historical reality of Ukraine is complicated, a thousand-year history of changing religions, borders and peoples. The capital, Kyiv, was established hundreds of years before Moscow, and both Russians and Ukrainians claim it as a birthplace of their modern cultures, religion and language.
Kyiv was ideally situated along the trade routes that developed in the ninth and 10th centuries, and flourished only to see its economic influence diminish as trade shifted elsewhere. The many conquests by warring factions and Ukraine’s diverse geography — with farmland, forests and a maritime environment on the Black Sea — created a complex fabric of multiethnic states.
The history and culture of Russia and Ukraine are indeed intertwined — they share the same Orthodox Christian religion, and their languages, customs and national cuisines are related."
Putin Calls Ukrainian Statehood a Fiction. History Suggests Otherwise. (Published 2022)
In a speech, President Vladimir V. Putin bent Ukraine’s complex history into his own version that served as a justification for his cleaving off more of its territory.
www.nytimes.com