In a speech addressing Russian citizens, President Vladimir Putin announced on Monday, Feb. 21, that he had recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine. Putin also said that the Ukrainian state is a “fiction.” He added that Ukraine was historically founded by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, who gave the country a sense of statehood through autonomous rule within the Soviet Union that began to take shape after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917.
In its report, The New York Times stated that Putin’s reading of the history of the Ukrainian state is contextually not accurate and may be misleading. Russia and Ukraine share roots in the first Slavic state (Kievan Rus), a “medieval empire founded by the Vikings” in the ninth century.
The historical reality of Ukraine is also complex, spanning over a thousand years of “changing religions, borders and peoples.” Kyiv's capital was founded “hundreds of years before Moscow, and both Russians and Ukrainians claim it as a birthplace of their modern culture, religion, and language.”
The Ukrainian and Russian histories overlap; the two countries predominantly identify as Orthodox Christian, and their peoples share the same customs, traditions, and cuisine. Many Russians see Ukraine as their “little brother”. But Ukrainian nationalism has long been an issue for the Russian authorities since the tsarist era that preceded the communist revolution.
The report stated that many areas of eastern Ukraine were under the authority of the Russian Empire. Still, some western parts of it were, at different times, under the authority of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, or Lithuania.
In his speech, Putin stated that Ukraine took advantage of the weakness of the Soviet Union under former President Mikhail Gorbachev to declare its independence. But the truth is that it was the Ukrainian people who voted in a democratic referendum for Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
Thus, Putin’s reading (or rather misreading) of the history of Ukraine’s formation comes in the context of undermining the independent state’s sovereignty. It also comes against the backdrop of justifying military intervention and invasion.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
Misbar’s Sources
