President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday, during a meeting with the president of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Valery Zorkin, that Ukraine did not exist “in the history of mankind” until its creation by the Soviet Union in 1922, one of the main justifications of the Kremlin for its military intervention in the neighboring country, reports EFE, according to Agerpres.
“Soviet authorities created the Soviet Union. It is a well known fact. And until then there was no Ukraine in the history of mankind,” Putin said.
The Russian president made the comment while looking at a copy of a map of the Russian Empire, which was allegedly made in France in the 17th century and which was given to him by the president of the Constitutional Court, who was awarded the state prize on Tuesday at the Kremlin.
On this map, according to Russian media, several territories are marked, such as the Polish-Lithuanian Union, but not Ukraine as an independent entity.
During the ceremony held in the Kremlin, Putin emphasized that part of the Russian people was separated from the rest of the state because of a “historical injustice”, referring to the dismemberment of the USSR into 15 independent states in 1991. “But nevertheless they never stopped being our people,” he said.
It is the same argument that Putin has been repeating for years and that he presented during a historic televised speech on February 21, 2022, three days before the start of the current military campaign in Ukraine.
Putin believes that Kiev should thank the founder of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin, for allowing the creation of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The USSR was created in December 1922 as a federal state. Point 26 of the treaty establishing the Soviet Union provided for the right of each republic to leave the union freely. The Russians and the Ukrainians were on an equal footing. This option was used by several republics to break ties with the Kremlin in the late 1980s, which led to the breakup of the USSR.
Putin did not hesitate to accuse Lenin of placing an “atomic bomb under the edifice called Russia”, which “then exploded” by recognizing the right of peoples to self-determination.
The Russian Ministry of Education recently announced the development of a new history textbook for the last year of secondary education, with chapters dedicated to the campaign in Ukraine.
The independent media reported that positive references to Ukraine have disappeared from several historical accounts, particularly regarding Kievan Rus, the first medieval Slavic kingdom, which both Russians and Ukrainians consider the forerunner of their states.
Editor : C.L.B.
