Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul
I would assume he means Russia.
Afaik, Ukraine was part of Russia/USSR/etc for most of the previous 200 or more years before it became independant in the early 1990's.
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Ukraine was part of the Russian empire, for which the title ‘Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ was a communist euphemism. But, if you go back far enough, Kyiv was a major city when Moscow was still a swamp. The Rus, as a people group, actually originate in the area known as Ukraine, and spread into what we now know as Russia. This is the base justification Putin uses for wanting to bring Ukraine under his control (and why any claim to only the Russian speaking south and east is an outright lie - the claim that it’s Russian land extends at least as far as the modern western border of Ukraine and quite possibly some way further west again). But by his logic it should be Kyiv and its people controlling Russia, not the other way around.
Notwithstanding any of the above, Ukraine has long since developed a distinct culture and language that is Slavic but not Russian. Putin’s pretexts for extending his influence make no more sense than those put forward by Hitler in the 1930s.