Intro:
Egor Kholmogorov: The intertwined roots of history explain why Russia can't let go of Ukraine
(Monument of Prince Vladimir in Moscow, Russia. © Andrew Surma / NurPhoto)
"In August 1948, the US National Security Council issued memorandum (NSC 20/1 1948), requested by then Defense Secretary James Forrestal. The document described American objectives with respect to the Soviet Union.
A significant part of the memorandum focused on Ukraine. American analysts were convinced that the territory was an integral part of greater Russia, and it was highly unlikely that Ukrainians could exist as an independent nation. Most importantly, it noted, any support given to separatists would be met with a strong negative reaction by Russians.
“The economy of the Ukraine is inextricably intertwined with that of Russia as a whole … To attempt to carve it out of the Russian economy and to set it up as something separate would be as artificial and as destructive as an attempt to separate the Corn Belt, including the Great Lakes industrial area, from the economy of the United States…
Finally, we cannot be indifferent to the feelings of the Great Russians themselves … They will continue to be the strongest national element in that general area, under any status … The Ukrainian territory is as much a part of their national heritage as the Middle West is of ours, and they are conscious of that fact. A solution which attempts to separate the Ukraine entirely from the rest of Russia is bound to incur their resentment and opposition, and can be maintained, in the last analysis, only by force,” read the report.
It seems like today’s American establishment and media have forgotten something that was obvious to US analysts and politicians at a time when America was the only superpower with nuclear weapons. It would appear that the White House and EU now believe they can make Russians think of Ukraine as a different country through force and sanctions threats.
If the West is successful in its attempts to “deter” Russia, it will get its reward – long-lasting resentment from Russians, who will view the US-led West as a force that prevents them from managing a big chunk of their historic land.
Why do Russians think of Ukraine as part of Russia?
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Russians see it as the land of their forefathers – quite literally, as they can show you the graves of their ancestors and the land where their houses stood.
When the administrative boundaries between the republics of the USSR turned into real borders in 1991, eight million ethnic Russians became ‘Ukrainians’ on paper. Kharkov in Ukraine and Belgorod in Russia, for example, are essentially twin cities that were founded by Russian tsars as frontier fortresses against the Crimean Tatars in the mid-17th century. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, they ended up on the opposite sides of the border. . .
> Many Russians not only lived but also worked in Ukraine, which was a key industrial area in Russia. Its industrial development can’t be attributed to Ukrainian national character – it was the tsars and then the Soviet authorities that focused on this region’s growth. The industrial density of eastern Ukraine could only compare to that of Germany’s Ruhr. . .
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The Ukrainian leaders’ attitude towards the powerful gas transportation system that had been left to them by the USSR was characteristic – they perceived it as a tool for blackmail. Unable to create or improve the system, they threatened to block or destroy it if they did not receive more money for the right to pump gas through ‘their’ territory.
Hence the hysterical reaction of the Ukrainian elites to the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, linking Russia directly to Germany. The fact that the Western powers have supported this view has led to the largest gas crisis in European history. . .
> Russians living in Russia, as well as those living in Ukraine, cannot understand why Ukrainian land should be used by NATO. In Russia, Ukraine’s possible accession to the US-led military bloc is not construed as a free choice made by the country in its own security interests, but as a means for the West to build advance bases for launching a direct attack on Moscow.
> Do the Russians have historical grounds for considering this land their own, and for seeing the Kiev regime and NATO as the actual occupiers of this land? Definitely, in my view.
Kiev in modern Ukraine, Polatsk in contemporary Belarus, and Novgorod, Smolensk, and Rostov in today's Russia were one state in ancient times – Rus.
Though Kiev, the ‘Mother of Russian cities,’ was the capital of this state, Novgorod, which is now part of Russia, played no lesser a role. Amazingly, anthropologists in northern Russia’s Arkhangelsk Region have recorded epic ballads about Prince Vladimir and his warriors, who baptized Rus, which are similar in many ways to legends about King Arthur and the knights of the round table. It is therefore obvious that the local population retained a direct cultural connection with the population of ancient Kiev and Russia. At the same time, no similar ballads have been preserved in modern Ukraine.
> Kiev was almost destroyed as the result of the Mongol invasion by Genghis Khan’s grandson, Batu Khan, in 1240, and the fate of the inhabitants in different parts of Rus was divided after that. The eastern regions became vassals of the Mongols (Tatars) but continued to be ruled by direct male descendants of Prince Vladimir. The city of Moscow, with princes from this house, gradually gained hegemony and created a state that managed to gain independence.
A different fate awaited the inhabitants of Western Russia. The cities there lost the power of Prince Vladimir’s descendants, as well as their historical connection to ancient Kiev. They were conquered by Lithuania, which soon merged with Poland to form a single state – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Since these lands were cut in half by the practically impassable Polesie Marshes, two different groups of Russian origin emerged there during the Middle Ages: Belarusians to the north of the marshes, and ‘Little Russians’ to the south.
The Muscovite princes, who became tsars in 1549, always proclaimed their right to these lands and demanded their return from Poland, leading a slow kind of ‘Reconquista’. Poland lost the support of its Little Russian and Belarusian subjects in this struggle after it announced the religious Union of Brest in 1596 and began persecuting the Orthodox Church and its adherents. An Orthodox resistance movement emerged in the territories of Little Russia shortly thereafter.
The resistance’s strike force was the Cossacks – a community of free warriors that assembled in the steppe for battles with the Tatars and Turks. A Cossack could be a native of any country who professed Orthodox Christianity and was ready to fight for it. As Poland progressively persecuted the Orthodox religion, the Cossacks increasingly raised their sabers against it. . .
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Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich was declared ‘Tsar of All Great, Little, and White Russia’ and began a grueling 13-year war with Poland, which ended with a partial victory – the lands on the left bank of the Dnieper were ceded to Russia, and the Russian Tsardom bought Kiev, the ancient capital of Rus on the right, for 146,000 silver rubles and seven tons of silver, which the richest Polish families divided among themselves.
Subsequently, many Little Russians from the territory of modern Ukraine moved north and settled throughout the vast reaches of Russia, making careers both in the church and at court. The word ‘Ukraine’ was not used as a place name at all during this period – in both Russian and Polish it meant ‘borderland’ or ‘frontier’. Its use as a name referring to the territories around Kiev only began in the 18th century, when these lands really did become a borderland during the constant wars between Russia and Turkey.
The integration of Little Russians into Russia was not even disrupted by the adventure of Hetman Mazepa, who betrayed Peter the Great out of personal interests and sided with the Russian leader’s enemy King Charles XII of Sweden. Mazepa was abandoned by everyone except his personal guards, and a fierce guerrilla war began against the Swedish troops that entered the territory of modern Ukraine. The first attempt to exploit the concept of ‘Ukrainian separatism’ ended in disaster for the party that tried to employ it.
By the middle of the 18th century, the integration of Little Russians and Russia was extremely tight. . . ____________________________________________________________________
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__________More Details >> https://www.rt.com/russia/556073-russians-never-let-go-ukraine/
[ ] The Russian Federation had been experiencing a long crisis with respect to national identity and consciousness, and it was Ukraine that pulled it out of this muddle. As predicted in 1948 by US National Security Council analysts, the Russians became enraged on learning that propaganda was being used to make some Russians see themselves as ‘non-Russian’.
The first wound to Russian pride was inflicted back in Soviet times, when Malenkov and Khrushchev transferred Crimea from the RSFSR (Russia) to the Ukrainian SSR (Ukraine) in 1954. Russians considered this peninsula to be their own land, steeped in the blood of two heroic defenses of Sevastopol (1854-55 and 1941-42). Though the outward manifestation of this transfer was limited to changing the color of Crimea on maps from pink to green, it was perceived as an ethnic insult by Russians in the USSR. Sevastopol was the ‘city of Russian sailors’ (as was sung in a famous song) and no one dared argue with this. Russian indignation reached a boiling point after the peninsula became part of an independent Ukraine in 1991, and the government began to ban the Russian language there. The phrase “You will still answer for Sevastopol” from the popular movie ‘Brat 2’ became a nationwide meme.
Several waves of forced Ukrainization in the 20th century have convinced Russians that Ukrainian identity is not something stemming from ancient history and culture, but something that is instilled by propaganda. Like it or not, Russians in Russia see modern Ukraine’s hostility towards the Russian part of its population not as a free choice of ethnic identity, but as a disease that has arisen under the influence of propaganda that must be cured. The more assertively some Ukrainians declare that they are not brothers to Russians, but enemies, that they want to be with NATO, and not Russia, the greater the desire on the other side is to save and cure them, whatever that means.
The trick of the West – to appeal to the population of modern Ukraine’s sense of unique identity – is even more dangerous in terms of provoking conflict. The reaction of Russians to these appeals is similar to that of the parents of a kidnapped child who has been turned against them. It’s better not to get in their way.
To sum up: Russians have many vital and historical reasons to consider Ukraine their land, and to see Ukrainians, even those most hostile to Russia, as their own people, who are in need of protection (including from brainwashing). The West’s claims that it has a right to exercise hegemony over Ukraine because ‘Ukraine is not Russia’ is seen by Russians in Russia as false and predatory."
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