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History Illustrated: Russia and Ukraine, a history of violence

Putin thinks Ukraine belongs to Russia based on what happened 1,000 years ago. The Ukrainians could not disagree more.

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By Danylo Hawaleshka
Published On 27 Mar 2023

History Illustrated is a weekly series of insightful perspectives that puts news events and current affairs into an historical context using graphics generated with artificial intelligence.

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This thing between Russia and Ukraine didn’t start with Putin’s invasion.
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This thing goes back a thousand years, to the grand prince of Kyiv, Vladimir I, when he was baptised an Orthodox Christian.
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Today, many Russian nationalists figure that makes Ukrainians one of them. But does it?
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People have wanted a piece of Ukraine for centuries. In 1793, for instance, the empress of Russia annexed a lot of present-day Ukraine.
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Early in the 20th century, Lenin made sure Ukraine became a founding republic of the Soviet Union. In 1991, as Gorbachev and Yeltsin watched the Soviet Union collapse, Ukraine declared independence.
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Later, Putin showed up, and started eying Ukraine all over again.
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But the Orange Revolution and EuroMaidan protests put the brakes on any plans the Russian president might have had.
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In the aftermath, though, Putin annexed Crimea, started a low-grade war in eastern Ukraine and, in 2022, launched a full-on invasion.
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Today, with the US and China on opposite sides of this thing, the stakes in this war—not just for Ukrainians, but for all of us—could not be higher.