Russian President Vladimir Putin is obsessed with Ukraine — or, rather, with pretending that Ukraine doesn’t exist.
In his annual call-in show on June 30, he claimed that “Ukrainians and Russians are a single people.” He then published an article aimed at justifying that “conviction,” by tracing the two countries’ shared history. It is a masterclass in disinformation — and one step short of a declaration of war.
Putin begins his tale in Ancient Rus, where Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians were united by one language and — after the “baptism of Russia” into the Orthodox religion — one faith until the fifteenth century. Even amid fragmentation, Putin writes, the people perceived Russia as their shared motherland.