In a new article, Putin calls Ukraine a Soviet-era invention and says modern Ukraine is built on a "divide and conquer" mechanism
On the 12th of July, Kremlin published another article by President Vladimir Putin, "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians". The piece published both in Russian and in Ukrainian is full of well-known propaganda tropes about the history of Ukraine and Russia and reflections on the modern state of politics. Needless to say that Russian state media feeds on such content and narratives. Hence, nearly every single state-sponsored outlet has published extensive analytical pieces and bits (example: RT) reflecting the same aggressive rhetoric.
The piece starts by saying that Russians and Ukrainians are "one nation, a unified whole". Putin calls the conflict between Russia and Ukraine "a common misfortune and tragedy". After a long journey through history not deprived of controversies, coming back to modern times, he mentions that the South-West of Ukraine is "historic Russian lands" and elaborates further that modern Ukraine "that to a large extent was created at the expense of historical Russia". He explains that Ukraine is a byproduct of the Soviet Union, and bolshevik ideology and "Ukrainians" have been created due to a "politics of division of the great Russian nation". He blames the Ukrainian elites for rewriting the history and negating the past in a way that undermined "everything that connected them with Russia".
Putin writes that in modern Ukraine, Russians are facing a de-russification, "violent assimilation", "a forced change of identity", and "are led to believe that Russia is their enemy". He states that as a result of that state-supported policy, the number of Russian people in Ukraine may decrease by millions.
Putin also blames the West for the making of Ukraine as an "Anti-Russia" project, as "Ukraine is not Russia" narrative was not enough to put a barrier between Europe and Russia. "The "right" patriot in Ukraine now", he says, "is the one who hates Russia", while people with pro-Russian views are "not allowed to raise their heads. They are intimidated, driven underground… not only persecuted but also killed."
The article also talks about how the central pre-election campaign promise of current President Zelensky, meaning the establishment of peace and ceasefire in Donbas, "turned out to be a lie".
He finishes the article by saying that "Russia has never been and will never be "anti-Ukraine". What Ukraine should be - it is up to its citizens to decide." This is Putin's peculiar way of saying that Moscow is open for a dialogue with Kyiv, but exclusively on its own terms.
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