DISINFO: The West is making noise about a country invented by Lenin [Ukraine]
SUMMARY
Russian troops are displaying initiative on Ukrainian fronts. It is surprising that the West is making noise about the loss of territories of a country which was invented by Vladimir Lenin. In the past, Europe did not demand to cancel the USSR’s partition, which is historically the integral Russian territory.
RESPONSE
This is an attempt to portray Ukraine as a state artificially created by the Bolsheviks, part of recurring negation of Ukrainian statehood and historical revisionism by pro-Kremlin media outlets in the context of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Referring to the USSR as Russian territory promotes a nationalist geopolitical concept justifying Russian expansionism in the post-Soviet sphere.
The history of Ukraine dates back to the era of the Kyivan Rus in the 9th-13th. Back then, Moscow as well as some other present-day Russian cities were governed, albeit partially, from Kyiv. Due to a variety of historical reasons, Kyiv’s importance declined over the centuries, the Russian Empire subjugated Ukraine and finally turned it into a colony in the 18th century.
In the aftermath of World War I and the disintegration of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires two states were created: the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) and the West Ukrainian People's Republic. They merged into a unified state - the Ukrainian People's Republic - on 22 January 1919. Under Lenin's leadership at the beginning of the 20th century, Ukraine was occupied by the Bolsheviks and for decades was under communist control. When the Soviet Union began to unravel in 1990–91, the legislature of the Ukrainian SSR declared sovereignty (July 16, 1990) and then outright independence (August 24, 1991). With the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, Ukraine gained full independence.
Ukraine is recognised by international law as a sovereign nation-state with its own flag, citizenship, language and a delimited territory. Ukraine possesses all the elements of a sovereign and independent country such as a legislature, a president, a government and other symbols of power.
Putin frequently resorts to pseudo-historical grounds for Russia’s completely unprovoked and unjustified large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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