You said:
So let's look at the historical facts.
1. "Ukraine was always a part of the Russian empire, and later became a part of the Soviet Union."
I reply:
"Totally untrue! Ukraine was founded in the 9th century AD by the Varagian (Viking!) Volodymyr. Russia wasn't founded till the 13-14 centuries by the Mongols & and some Finns. Ukraine had beautiful cathedrals, monasteries, schools and universities starting in the 9th to 11th centuries. The Rus Empire was centered on Kyiv, and lasted till the Mongols hordes swept over the Steppes. Ukrainians had their own language & writing system, called Cryllic, which was designed by Byzantine monks in the 8th century AD, who brought Christianity to Ukraine from Constantinople. When Volodymyr converted to Christianity he began a church building program and sent missionaries throughout the country to bring people to Christ. Moscow was empty forest, while Ukraine was the flowering of the Rus Empire, which was called after the original name for Ukrainians- Ruthenians.
Russia never actually owned western Ukrainian, but after the Rus empire broke up, Lithuanians to the north had several great empires, where they conquered both Ukraine & Poland. Later, the Polish ruled western Ukrainian, till after Polish Partition, when Austria ruled Ukraine and sent in many people to run Polish only schools, newspapers and businesses. Ukrainians were not treated well, unless you had Polish blood, which my family did.
Meanwhile, in Eastern Ukraine, Russia systematically suppressed Ukrainian language & culture. Ukrainian books & languages were not allowed in the east.
In the west, Poland was conquered by Austria-Hungry, and ruled it very lightly. When my grandfather came from western Ukraine, WWI started 4 years later. He was considered to be an Austrian citizen and had his passport stamped "enemy alien!" Many of his friends were put in a Canadian concentration camps, and died there. My grandfather ran a store & was considered to be essential services. After WWI, Russia attempted again to start a war to conquer Western Ukraine. However the Polish were given permission to rule Galacia, as it was called then, and they fought a war and defeated the Bolsheviks !
Stalin did rule Eastern Ukraine with violent, paranoid madness & stupidity. He collectivised the farms and 6-10 million Ukrainian peasants starved to death. This was a deliberate attempt to commit genocide of the Ukrainian people in the 1932-33. In 1937-38, Stalin wiped out all the high ranking Ukrainian communists, nearly 100,000 people.
Next, Ukraine became the Eastern front of WWII. Ukraine welcomed the Germans in the hope they would be better than Russia & Stalin. Although many Ukrainians were forced to fight with Russia. The Germans marched into various countries with their Einsatzgruppen with the sole purpose of killing Jews. Group 1 killed every single Jew in Lithuania. Group 2 killed 97% of the Jews in Belorussia, as it was called, and hundreds of thousands of Jews in Ukraine, Romania, Czech, etc. at the end of the war, Russia pushed hard to get to Berlin and claimed all the territory it's army was on, including Ukraine & Poland. That was the first time alll of Ukraine was under Russia rule, 1945.
Linguistically, if you compare Ukrainian & Russian, they are not the closest Slavic languages. Russian is closest to Bulgarian, & Belorussian. Ukrainian is closest to Polish. Most Poles & Ukrainians can communicate well in the west. Eastern Ukraine suffered from centuries of Russian suppression of Ukrainian policies being forced down its throat. Many Ukrainians are learning their own language after years of Russian policies of cultural genocide.
You said:
2. ""When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1999, Ukraine and many other satellite countries broke away. But Ukraine always had a Russian presence within it, and their cultures are very similar. They all are Slavic."
In fact, this shows incredible ignorance of the many faceted cultures of Eastern Europe. Russians aren't Slavs at all, coming from Mongols and Finns, although Russia deported many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians to Siberia, most never returned home! Here is a record of Slavic language groups:
Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian - Eastern-slavic languages, Polish, Czech, Slovak - Western-Slavic languages, Bulgarian, Makedonian, Serb-Chorvat, Slovenian - Southern Slavic languages.
Russia has no more right to go into
Ukraine than it does Poland or Czechia, Slovenia or Bulgaria. No more right to destroy Ukrainian's unique culture than any other European country.
My advice is to read some actual history books and learn how ignorant you are. Here are some excellent, well researched, and primary researched.
"Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler & Stalin" by Timothy Snyder
"The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine" by Sergii Plokny
Watch the Yale History series on YouTube: "The History of Ukraine" by Timothy Snyder a Yake professor. This is a 24 episode series starting from the earliest beginning of Ukraine to the present, and how Ukraine is completely different from Russia- language, culture, philosophy, and religion.
I dare you to read or watch a series on the truth of Ukraine. I am half Ukrainian, I have family in Ukraine, cousins killed in the fighting. Russia has done terrible, imperialistic and very wrong move in trying to conquer Ukraine. I'm in many Ukrainian groups, and my people are unified that we will fight to death to
The last person!
Your other points are just dramatically and ignorantly wrong. After you have studied Ukraine seriously then you will see how wrong/simplistic/ignorant about Russia's unwarranted aggression against Ukraine you are!
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