DISINFO: Ukraine was created by Lenin, Stalin, and Khrushchev
SUMMARY
Ukraine as a state emerged precisely during the period of communist rule, starting with Ulyanov (Lenin) (who added Novorossiya to Ukraine), Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (added Western regions of Ukraine), and, finally, Nikita Khrushchev (Crimea).
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denigrating the history of Ukraine and its statehood.
The history of Ukraine dates back to the era of the Kyivan Rus’ in the 9th-13th centuries. A fully independent Ukraine only emerged in the 20th century, after long periods of successive domination by Poland-Lithuania, Russia, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). 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.
The EUvsDisinfo database contains other examples of this disinformation narrative, for instance, that Ukraine was created by Vladimir Lenin, that Ukraine was artificially created by the Bolsheviks, that Ukrainian statehood is an inheritance from Soviet Ukraine, or that Ukraine never had independence before joining the Soviet Union.