Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again reiterated his favourite sentiment: “It was only after the October Revolution that various quasi-states appeared and the Soviet government created Soviet Ukraine. It is a well-known fact.” To historian Alexander Orlov such statements are not only incorrect, but they show the Russian government’s “passeism”, the hostility towards the present and future.
No matter if we regard historical inhabitants or current ones as the rightful owners of the land, Ukrainians are neither in the first nor the second category, so my point stands.