Using a historical map, the Russian president explains that Ukraine never existed until the 20th century. Not for the first time.
Moscow - Russian President Vladimir Putin is known for wanting to legitimize his war against Ukraine with historical arguments. Therefore, an important element of Russian propaganda is the claim that Ukraine is not a separate state with its own historical tradition, but merely a product of the 20th century, created as a creature of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has therefore never been anything other than an integral part of Russia.
This idea is the background to a bizarre scene that took place in the Kremlin and was broadcast by the Russian TV channel Russia 24. Putin can be seen in conversation with the chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court, Valery Zorkin. Together, they looked at an almost 400-year-old historical map. The topic of the conversation was the "non-existent Ukraine".
Putin on Ukraine: "It never existed until it was founded by the Soviet Union"
Zorkin had brought Putin a copy of a French map that, according to him, had been drawn up during the time of Louis XIV in the middle of the 17th century. He said he brought them with him to show his president that "there is no Ukraine there." The map would only depict the Polish-Lithuanian Community, the Cossack territories and the Kingdom of Muscovy.
"This is common knowledge," Putin said. "These countries were simply part of the Polish-Lithuanian community, and then were asked to become part of the Kingdom of Moscow. (...) And only later, after the October Revolution, quasi-state entities began to form. The Soviet Union created Soviet Ukraine. There has never been a Ukraine in the history of mankind up to this point."
The name Moscow refers to the predecessor states of the Russian Empire, which was proclaimed in 1721. In the 17th century, Russia was commonly known as Muscovia.
Putin's lies are part of the Russian state ideology
This is not the first time that Putin has denied the existence of Ukraine as a historically grown state. Back in December 2021, two months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he emphasized Lenin's role in the creation of Ukraine at a press conference. "Who created them (Ukraine)? Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. When he created the Soviet Union. (...) It was created according to his principles," the Russian president said at the time.
A few days before the start of the Ukraine war, Putin, in an appeal to the Russians, repeated this falsification of history, calling Lenin the "creator and architect" of modern Ukraine. Only his "concessions", i.e. that the Ukrainian territories within the Soviet Union received the status of a separate republic, allowed Ukraine to obtain the status of a separate state. He described this policy as "worse than a mistake," as Deutsche Welle reported in a fact check.
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"Modern Ukraine was created entirely by Russia, more precisely, by Bolshevik, communist Russia." This Putinian credo has become part of the Russian state ideology. It is now so present that Putin's regime is making Ukraine disappear from school textbooks. Among other things, references to the historical role of Ukraine in the formation of Russia are deleted. From the medieval empire of Kievan Rus, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus emerged.