On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians
On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians[a] is an essay by Russian president Vladimir Putin published on 12 July 2021.[1]
Author
- English
- Russian
- Ukrainian
12 July 2021
Russia
It was published on Kremlin.ru shortly after the end of the first of two buildups of Russian forces preceding the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the essay, Putin describes his views on Ukraine and Ukrainians.[2]
According to RBK Daily, the essay is included in the list of mandatory works to be studied by the Russian military.[3] In 2021, the essay was also published as a book with no author indicated.[4]
Contents
In the essay, Putin argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation.[5] To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the history of Russia and Ukraine,[6] concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny.[7]
Noting the large number of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, Putin compares "the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia" to a use of weapons of mass destruction against Russians.[8]
Putin openly questions the legitimacy of Ukraine's contemporary borders.[9] According to Putin, the modern-day Ukraine occupies historically Russian lands,[9] and is an "anti-Russia project" created by external forces since the seventeenth century, and of administrative and political decisions made during the Soviet Union[5] (a BBC article traced the term "anti-Russia project" to some Russian conspiratorial writing of 2011–13).[10] He also discusses the Russo-Ukrainian War, maintaining that "Kiev simply does not need Donbas".[11]
Putin places blame for the current crisis on foreign plots and anti-Russian conspiracies.[9] According to Putin, the decisions of the Ukrainian government are driven by a Western plot against Russia as well as by "followers of Bandera".[12]
Putin ends the lengthy essay by asserting Russia's role in modern Ukrainian affairs.[9]
Reactions
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, criticized the essay on 13 July, comparing Putin's view on the brotherhood between the nations with the story of Cain and Abel.[31] Former president Petro Poroshenko also sharply criticized the essay, describing it as a counterpart of Hitler's Sudetenland speech.[32] Former president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves similarly likened it to Hitler's 1938 rhetoric justifying the partition of Czechoslovakia.[33] Ukraine's envoy to United Nations Sergiy Kyslytsya commented, "fables about the 'one people' ... have been refuted in Donbas battlefields".[34]
According to the Institute of History of Ukraine, the essay represents the historical views of the Russian Empire.[35] The Ukrainian World Congress compares Putin's view of Ukraine "as a non-nation" to that of Joseph Stalin under whose watch at least five million Ukrainians perished during the Holodomor.[6]
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace called the essay a "historical, political, and security predicate for invading [Ukraine]".[36] The Stockholm Free World Forum senior fellow Anders Åslund branded the essay as "one step short of a declaration of war."[9] According to Foreign Policy, the essay is a "key guide to the historical stories that shape Putin's and many Russian's attitudes".[37] Historian Timothy Snyder has described Putin's ideas as imperialism.[38] British journalist Edward Lucas described it as historical revisionism.[39] Other observers have noted that the Russian leadership has a distorted view of modern Ukraine and its history.[5][9]
In Romania, a part of the essay caused outrage. The fragment in question describes how, in 1918, the Kingdom of Romania had "occupied" (and not united with) the geographical region of Bessarabia, part of which is now in Ukraine. Romanian media outlets such as Adevărul and Digi24 commented on Putin's statements and criticized them. Remarks were also made regarding Northern Bukovina, another former Romanian territory now part of Ukraine.[40][41] Alexandru Muraru, then a deputy of Romania, also replied to Putin's essay, declaring that Bessarabia was not occupied but "reattached" and "reincorporated" following "democratic processes and historical realities". Muraru also commented on Northern Bukovina.[42]
A report by 35 legal and genocide experts cited Putin's essay as part of "laying the groundwork for incitement to genocide: denying the existence of the Ukrainian group".[43]
In his 2022 Yale lecture, Timothy Snyder argues that Putin's essay is a piece of "bad history".[44]
