''On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians'' is an essay by

Russian president The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the Federal State Council and the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. I ...

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

published on the '' Kremlin.ru'' website on 12 July 2021. The essay was published 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 Ukrainians (, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. Their native tongue is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, and the majority adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, forming the List of contemporary eth ...

. According to RBK Daily, the essay is included in the list of mandatory works to be studied by the

Russian military The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. They are organized into three service branches—the Ground Forces, Navy, and Aerospace Forces—two independent comba ...

. In 2021, the essay was also published as a book with no author indicated.

In the essay, Putin argues that

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

and

, along with

Belarusians Belarusians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian language, Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99&n ...

, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation. To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the

history of Russia The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prin ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny. 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 A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a Biological agent, biological, chemical weapon, chemical, Radiological weapon, radiological, nuclear weapon, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great dam ...

against Russians. Putin openly questions the legitimacy of Ukraine's contemporary borders, which are based on the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

–

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

borders. According to Putin, modern-day Ukraine occupies historically Russian lands, 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 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

article traced the term "anti-Russia project" to some Russian conspiratorial writing of 2011–2013). He also discusses the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...

, maintaining that "Kiev simply does not need

Donbas The Donbas (, ; ) or Donbass ( ) is a historical, cultural, and economic region in eastern Ukraine. The majority of the Donbas is occupied by Russia as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The word ''Donbas'' is a portmanteau formed fr ...

". Putin places blame for the current crisis on foreign plots and anti-Russian conspiracies. According to Putin, the decisions of the Ukrainian government are driven by a Western plot against Russia as well as by "followers of Bandera". Putin ends the lengthy essay by asserting Russia's role in modern Ukrainian affairs. According to an April 2023 investigative report by the Russian website ', one draft of the essay included a direct threat of military action against Ukraine, although it was removed from the final version.

Follow-ups

A few days later, the Kremlin website published an interview with Putin about the article. Several months later,

Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev was also President of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and Prime Mini ...

, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, also published an article on Ukraine in the Russian daily ''

Kommersant (, , ''The Businessman'' or Commerce Man, often shortened to Ъ) is a nationally distributed daily newspaper published in Russia mostly devoted to politics and business. The TNS Media and NRS Russia certified July 2013 circulation of the daily ...

''. In it, he agrees with Putin's essay, and declares that there will be no negotiations with Ukraine until the Ukrainian government is replaced. The article, endorsed by the Kremlin, was criticized for its denigrating and

antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

tone. Vladislav Surkov, the personal adviser (2013–2020) of Putin, also published an article concerning Ukraine and other ex-USSR territories on the website ''Aktualnye Kommentarii''. In the article, he questions the legitimacy of the western border of Russia (including the borders with Ukraine and the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

), claiming that it was born out of the

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, whi ...

, arguing that Russia should abolish the "wicked peace" that keeps it confined by the borders. In a speech on 21 February 2022, following the deployment of Russian troops in the

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; ; ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin, and Stalino, is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine located on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast, which is currently occupied by Russia as the capita ...

and

Luhansk People's Republic The Luhansk People's Republic (LPR; , ) is a disputed territory administered as a republic of Russia in the occupied parts of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast, with its capital in Luhansk. The LPR was proclaimed by Russian-backed paramilitar ...

s, Putin said that "modern Ukraine was wholly and fully created by Bolshevik, communist Russia". Sarah Rainsford wrote in

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

that Putin's speech was "rewriting Ukraine's history", and that his focus on the country was "obsessive". Vitaly Chervonenko from the

noted how carefully Putin kept silent about the independent Ukrainian state formations of 1917–1920 and Kyiv's war with Lenin's Bolshevik government, whose purpose was to include Ukraine in Bolshevik Russia. Plokhiy recalled that Lenin invaded Ukraine and then took away even formal independence from Ukraine by integrating it into the Soviet Union in 1922. The article "The Advance of Russia and of a New World" by Petr Akopov was briefly published in several Russian state news sites on 26 February 2022, two days after Russian forces openly invaded Ukrainian-controlled territory, but was soon deleted. Its original publication on

RIA Novosti RIA Novosti (), sometimes referred to as RIAN () or RIA (), is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency. On 9 December 2013, by a decree of Vladimir Putin, it was liquidated and its assets and workforce were transferred to the newly created ...

at precisely 8:00 a.m. suggests it may have been automatically published by mistake. The article celebrates the "gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together—in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians", and Vladimir Putin's historic responsibility for "resolution of the Ukrainian question". The same state-owned RIA Novosti published another article in April 2022, this time without any backtracking. Titled " What Russia Should Do with Ukraine", the article openly accused the entire Ukrainian nation of being Nazis who must be wiped out and in some cases re-educated. On 29 March 2022, ''

Rossiyskaya Gazeta ' () is a Russian newspaper published by the Government of Russia. History ''Rossiyskaya Gazeta'' was founded in 1990 by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR during the ''glasnost'' reforms in Soviet Union, shortl ...

'', the official

government gazette A government gazette (also known as an official gazette, official journal, official newspaper, official monitor or official bulletin) is a periodical publication that has been authorised to publish public or legal notices. It is usually establish ...

of the Russian government, published an article that claims that European elites support the Ukrainian Nazis because of their bitterness over the loss in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The article quotes Ukrainian priest Vasiliy Zenkovskiy, "Ukraine must become a part of Russia, even if Ukrainians are against it".(). From: The article was also almost simultaneously published in German in journal Osteuropa under the title ''Über die historische Einheit der Russen und der Ukrainer''. (Vladimir Putin is fully fluent in written and spoken German).

Reactions

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (born 25 January 1978) is a Ukrainian politician and former entertainer who has served as the sixth and current president of Ukraine since 2019. He took office five years after the start of the Russo-Ukraini ...

, the

president of Ukraine The president of Ukraine (, ) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, conducts negotiations and concludes international treaties. ...

, criticized the essay on 13 July, comparing Putin's view on the brotherhood between the nations with the story of

Cain and Abel In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain and Abel are the first two sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices, each from his own fields, to God. God had regard for Ab ...

. Former president

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiiovych Poroshenko (born 26 September 1965) is a Ukraine, Ukrainian politician and Oligarchy, oligarch who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. He served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ukraine), Minister ...

also sharply criticized the essay, describing it as a counterpart of Hitler's

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and ) is a German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the border districts of Bohe ...

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

. Former

president of Estonia The president of the Republic of Estonia () is the head of state of the Estonia, Republic of Estonia. The current president is Alar Karis, elected by Parliament on 31 August 2021, replacing Kersti Kaljulaid. Estonia is one of the few parliam ...

Toomas Hendrik Ilves similarly likened it to Hitler's 1938 rhetoric justifying the partition of Czechoslovakia. Ukraine's envoy to

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

Sergiy Kyslytsya commented, "fables about the 'one people' ... have been refuted in Donbas battlefields". According to the Institute of History of Ukraine, the essay represents the historical views of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. The Ukrainian World Congress compares Putin's view of Ukraine "as a non-nation" to that of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...

under whose watch at least five million Ukrainians perished during the

Holodomor The Holodomor, also known as the Ukrainian Famine, was a mass famine in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions of Ukrainians. The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1930–193 ...

. The

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the United States. Foun ...

called the essay a "historical, political, and security predicate for invading kraine. The Stockholm Free World Forum senior fellow Anders Åslund branded the essay as "one step short of a declaration of war." According to ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'', the essay is a "key guide to the historical stories that shape Putin's and many Russian's attitudes". Historian

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the history of Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust. He is on leave from his position as the Richard C. Levin, Richar ...

described Putin's ideas as

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

, while British journalist Edward Lucas described the essay as

historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespa ...

. Other observers noted that the Russian leadership at the time had a distorted view of modern Ukraine and its history. In

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, a part of the essay caused outrage. The fragment in question describes how, in 1918, the

Kingdom of Romania The Kingdom of Romania () was a constitutional monarchy that existed from with the crowning of prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as King of Romania, King Carol I of Romania, Carol I (thus beginning the Romanian royal family), until 1947 wit ...

had "occupied" (and not united with) the geographical region of

Bessarabia Bessarabia () is a historical region in Eastern Europe, bounded by the Dniester river on the east and the Prut river on the west. About two thirds of Bessarabia lies within modern-day Moldova, with the Budjak region covering the southern coa ...

, part of which is now in Ukraine. Romanian media outlets such as ''

Adevărul (; meaning "The Truth", formerly spelled ''Adevĕrul'') is a Romanian daily newspaper, based in Bucharest. Founded in Iași, in 1871, and reestablished in 1888, in Bucharest, it was the main left-wing press venue to be published during the Kingd ...

'' and

Digi24 Digi24, often known as Digi 24 (), is a 24-hour Romanian news television channel which was launched on 1 March 2012 by Digi TV.MediafaxTeleviziunea de ştiri Digi24 a primit licenţă de la CNA şi se va lansa la 1 martie/ref> History 10 TV, ...

commented on Putin's statements and criticized them. Remarks were also made regarding Northern Bukovina, another former Romanian territory now part of Ukraine. 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. 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". In his 2022

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

lecture,

argues that Putin's essay is a piece of "bad history".

* '' The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia'', 1997 book by Aleksandr Dugin * " On conducting a special military operation", 2022 speech by Putin * " What Russia Should Do with Ukraine", 2022 article by Timofey Sergeytsev * " Where have you been for eight years?", a phrase used during the 2022

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

Notes

References

External links

* {{Russian invasion of Ukraine 2021 essays 2021 in Russia 2021 in Ukraine Essays by Vladimir Putin Imperialism Russian nationalism Russian irredentism Historical negationism Propaganda in Russia War in Donbas Prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Anti-Ukrainian sentiment in Russia Anti-Belarusian sentiment Anti-Western sentiment Propaganda in Russia related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine Russia–Ukraine relations

Contents

Follow-ups

Reactions

See also

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Notes

References

External links