Ukraine and Russia were one, but what kind of oneness?

By Edgar Rile de la Gente

BLOODLINE

Russians and Ukrainians lineage is traceable to the Slavic nations inhabiting Northeast, Southeast, Central Europe, and North Asia. The Slavs occupy 50% of Europe’s territory. The Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles are West Slavs. Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes, Bosniaks, and Serbs are South Slavs; while Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians are East Slavs.

Kievan Rus – A Slavic state ruled by Grand Prince Volodimer in the 9th century was home to the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians.  Kiev was their capital city. Then, in this Ukrainian-Russian-Belarusian state, a great deal of change transpired in the centuries that came after. For a great deal of that change, Ukraine had been subjected to Russia.

RUSSIAN DESIGN

Ukrainians were forcefully Russified by Katherine the Great of Russia in 1700 – transporting ethnic Russians to Ukraine, forcing Russian language to be taught in Ukrainian schools, and consequently banning Ukrainian language after a century. While in 1930, Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, orchestrated a famine in eastern Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians died, and the area was then repopulated with ethnic Russians – A design to seize the rich resources of Eastern Ukraine – coal, iron, fertile land, and to claim forced historic linking.

SOVIET UNION

When Russia’s monarchy was overthrown in 1917, The USSR or Union Soviet Socialist Republic rose into power. The Russian-led Soviet Union did eventually rise into powerful states comprising: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. But USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s radical reforms largely contributed to the collapse of the once-mighty Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine then declared itself an independent state with majority of the Soviet states.

SLAVS NOW

What now for the modern Slavs? By and large, they are diverse in all ways. So are the Russians and Ukrainians.

Gravitas Plus reports 70% of Ukrainians reject “one people thought”, 72% consider Russia a hostile state, and 32% ready to take up arms against Russia. 21.7% ready to stage civil resistance against Russia, 67% want to join the European Union, and 59% want to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (2022).

PUTIN’S WAR

Putin justifies invasion of Ukraine for NATO‘s presence nearing Russia’s borders, and so is he motivated by shared history between Russia and Ukraine. But that “we are one thought” of his, didn’t sit well with Ukrainians who have been warring with Russia’s proxies, the Moscow-backed rebel-held areas in Eastern Ukraine.

Kremlin’s agenda is one BIG move for Putin’s dream in trying to recreate the old Soviet by invading Ukraine. Perhaps, one BIG mistake for Putin if anti-war Russians will no longer put up with his costly and deadly thought-to-be imperialist ambition. Putin is recapturing Russia’s super-power image. Ukraine is too big to handle for Putin’s ideology.

In blood-red, Ukrainian-Russian history is being rewritten – once more.