DISINFO: Kyiv is a Russian city
SUMMARY
Kyiv is a Russian city, and if controlled by Nazis a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation. International threat. Because even though Kyiv is a Russian city by its roots, it is controlled by an international brigade of opponents to Russia led by the United States. ️Odessa is a Russian city that should also be liberated along with Kyiv.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin historical revisionism claim about Ukraine in the context of the full-scale invasion of the country by Russia.
Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine and was earlier the largest city of the medieval state of Kyivan Rus’ also named Ruthenia.
In the middle of the XVII century the term “little Ruthenia” or “little Rus’” or “little Russia” appeared in Moscow referring to the part of Ukraine that Tsar Alexis gained control on. This term was used in the Russian empire until 1917 for the part of Ukraine controlled by Moscow, however Ukrainians did not use this disparaging expression (history of Ukraine by French historian Iaroslav LEBEDYNSKY p115).
The heritage of the Kyivan Rus’ is claimed by the Kremlin for political reasons but the history of the Russian state is different and more complex than the official narrative. In November 2016, a 17m high monument to prince Vladimir was inaugurated near the Kremlin as a political gesture.
Despite what one reads in textbooks and hears in official pronouncements, Russia, especially by European standards, is a relatively young state. Its history as an independent polity officially begins less than six hundred years ago, in the 1470s, when Ivan III, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy of Muscovy to call himself tsar, challenged the suzerainty of the Mongol khans. At stake was not only the independent status of the rulers of Muscovy—the principality centered on the city of Moscow—but also their control over other Rus’ lands, in particular Novgorod, whose independence from Moscow the Mongol khans sought to maintain. It was then that the Kyivan roots of the Muscovite dynasty and church helped form a powerful myth of origin that distinguished Muscovy from its immediate Mongol past and nourished its self-image as heir to Byzantium.
In his history of the construction of the Russian state historian Serhii Plokhy exposes the central role Ukraine plays in Russia’s identity, both as an “other” to distinguish Russia, and as part of a pan-Slavic conceptualization used to legitimize territorial expansion and political control.
Contrary to pro-Kremlin’s claim Ukraine did not and does not intend to attack Russia to conquer its territory. Such claims are pretext for an aggression against Ukraine. In 2022 Russia used the pretext of a false Ukrainian attack against a border post and an alleged plan for a genocide to invade Ukraine as a defensive measure.
Read also related cases such as: Ukraine's statehood is myth, its territory belongs to Russia, or Ukrainians are historically Russians and need protection against western imperialism or DISINFO: Ukraine was artificially created by the Bolsheviks.