Extra Information & Clarifications Sources for all my videos are in the bibliography of my scripts available for free to download on my Patreon. www.patreon.com/mlaser?filters[tag]=script This video is not suppose to address every single inaccurate historical statement made by Putin, nor is it suppose to be an all encompassing video on the entire history of the Russian and Ukrainian relations. I sadly did not have time to go into much detail about identity history, religion, linguistics, ethnicity and how all these played a role in the history of the Russian Ukrainian relations. The point of this video is to introduce some of the basic historical facts about the Russian and Ukrainian relations and how this history is being inaccurately presented by Putin to justify his war. 0:26 Links to the articles shown in the video and also other extra information made by historians. www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-02-28-competing-identities-past-and-future-russia-and-ukraine www.ox.ac.uk/news/features/analysis-putins-imperial-ambitions-and-ukraines-300-year-road-statehood blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/?fbclid=IwAR19mdATGB18xcIXv7BMGqVxh7cxLj0OD2vQ9dJ7wHuZn6WwVa7UkLB9bhc www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/ukraine-ww2-roots-conflict-podcast-keith-lowe/ foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/07/russia-war-ukraine-maps/ twitter.com/OxHistorian/status/1499746963398475779?s=20&t=bh-rQBGU0mXcGJmZvtQAjg www.cam.ac.uk/stories/ukraine-needs-solidarity-not-crimnesia huri.harvard.edu/news/putin-historical-unity 0:45 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians 2:47 By the time of the Mongol invasion the idea of the Kievan Rus' as some sort of a single entity still existed. The nominal head of the Kievan Rus', usually the Prince of Kiev, and the eldest male member of the Rurikid dynasty, was supposed to hold power over the rest of the Rus' princess but in reality this was never really the case. 3:47 1480 is usually given as the date of Muscovite independence from the the Golden Horde but in reality there where many rebellions, treaties, back and forth, which gradually gave Muscovy more autonomy and power until they eventually became officially independent. 3:47 What is interesting, however, is that “There was nothing inevitable about Moscow’s rise to pre-eminence.” Moscow just happened to be the town that accumulated the most wealth and power but it didn’t have to be. If there happened to be some enterprising leaders in some other town we could have been talking today about Ryazan. The Formation of Muscovy Robert Crummey, p. 29. 4:13 The apostrophe at the end of the word Rus' is suppose to be pronounced as a Slavic soft 'i' but, in English pronunciation this last letter is omitted and since I am talking in English I did not pronounce it. 4:13 The word Rus', in it's earliest iteration, was originally supposed to only denote Norse people born and living in Eastern Europe who were one way or another connected with the land and its peoples (think of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's accounts for example). This name, however, over the course of the existence of the Kievan Rus' became to define the entire population of the Kievan Rus'. Since majority of the population of the Kieven Rus' was Slavic and, those who were not sooner or later assimilated into the larger Slavic population, the word Rus', by the end of the Kievan Rus', was used as an ethnonym for all the Eastern Slavs in general. I go into more detail about the etymology of this word in my Early East Slavic History video. 4:13 Ethnicity in the middle ages is complicated and I didn't really have time to get into it right now. If you want to know more read; Geary, Patrick J. The Myth of Nations : The Medieval Origins of Europe. Princeton, N.J. ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002. 6:09 Of course there was a back and forth between Russia and the Commonwealth with many Ukrainians playing a part on both sides. The Russian conquest of Eastern Europe wasn't a one single event. Also, I am sorry, but there was just no time to talk about the Cossack Hetmanate. A Cossack state which arguably could be called one of the first Ukrainian polities that existed largely as a Russian vassal from the mid 17th century to the 18th century. 7:25 Ukrainian was one of multiple words that got used as identifiers by Ukrainians. Other words where Ruthenians, Little Rus' (although this one has some negative imperial connotations with it), Cossacks, etc. I did not talk about the Cossacks in this video because there was really no time. If you want to know more about them and what kind of a role they played in Ukrainian history and identity go read this article by an LSE professor. blogs.lse.ac.uk/lseih/2020/07/01/there-is-no-ukraine-fact-checking-the-kremlins-version-of-ukrainian-history/?fbclid=IwAR19mdATGB18xcIXv7BMGqVxh7cxLj0OD2vQ9dJ7wHuZn6WwVa7UkLB9bhc 8:49 The word Little Russians came from the Patriarchal Eastern Orthodox divisions of the churches. Basically when the churches where being set up the Kyiv church was closer to Constantinople hence it was called Little Rus' church (in Byzantine Greek little and great can also mean distance like "great distance away") and the Muscovite church was further away hence it was called Greater Rus' Church. These words were suppose to denote nothing more than their distance from Constantinople but they later started to be used as the identifiers of the people who followed the respective churches in Kyiv or the one in Moscow. 9:27 Despite the Habsburg not cracking down on Ukraine as such, it was, for the most part, seen as a peasants language and culture, and Ukrainian speakers were not looked at with high value. Therefore, if one chose to actually embark on any meaningful carrier in the Austro-Hungarian Empire they usually had to learn German or Hungarian, and, in some instances, even Polish was more preferable over Ukrainian. Ukrainians, over all, as an ethnic group, weren't so actively suppressed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as in the Russian Empire but, as many minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they were also not treated as equals. 11:27 There were several competing attempts by Ukrainians and Russians alike to establish a Ukrainian Socialist Republic in the aftermath of the war. There was the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic, Ukrainian People's Republic of Soviets, etc. They all fought for control in the Ukrainian-Soviet War and where intermittently supported and denounced by the Russian Bolsheviks. They also had multiple members between them switching sides. Ultimately the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine, which where the last and final party supported by Moscow, won and later renamed to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and joined the USSR. I did not mention this in the video because it all gets very confusing very fast. 12:52 There was the one main Narkomnat headed by Stalin but in reality the Narkomnats were a collegium of multiple institutions set up in the constituent states like Ukraine. They were suppose to prepare plans on how autonomy of various constituents state was to be handled in the USSR and how a complete civil equality for all citizens could be reached. The Narkomnats where a direct response by the Bolsheviks to the Ukrainian opposition to joining the USSR with their Ukrainian People's Republic. The Narkomnats did not only use their knowledge of "censuses, historical studies, and ethnographic, geographic, and linguistic surveys" for nation building within the framework of the USSR but also to more effectively force incompliant states into the USSR. Such as Georgie or Ukraine. The Narkomnats were definitely not perfect but they also definitely did not create "arbitrarily formed administrative units". 14:10 This entire centralization of power stemmed from an opposition to an earlier Soviet plan, pushed forth by Lenin, called korenizatsiya. This plan promoted indigenes cultures and languages within each of the socialist republic. The reasonings for this were very complicated and couldn't be explained quickly in a short video (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiya). Basically under Stalin, Russification once again began to be a state policy in the USSR. 14:30 I don't have time to get into the Holodomor watch these videos for more information. ukposts.info/have/v-deo/imSYgqmwfmZ8pKc.html ukposts.info/have/v-deo/oZ1eeo-RrGljz58.html 16:01 Czechia: Emanuel Moravec France: Robert Brasillach Slovakia: Jozef Tiso Poland: Blue Police Russia: Bronislav Kaminski Of course, there were many more Nazi collaborators in all these countries than I have listed. These are just examples. 18:36 I forgot to mention it in the video but the Tatars were a sizable minority in Crimea by the end of WW2. In reality their numbers have been steadily declining due to russification and last time they were a majority in Crimea was in 1861. 20:18 31.7% of Urban families where also of mixed heritage so also think of that when looking at ethnic demographics. Rapawy, Stephen. "Ethnic reidentification in Ukraine", (1997). 21:26 There were several other same treaties signed in Budapest with other post Soviet countries like Belarus and Kazakhstan. 22:22 I will not go into detail of the modern events as there are plenty of articles explaining it (e.g. www.nytimes.com/2022/02/24/world/europe/why-russia-attacked-ukraine.html, www.vox.com/2022/2/23/22948534/russia-ukraine-war-putin-explosions-invasion-explained, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity). 23:25 There are also various regional language laws some of which are far harsher than the national ones but some of these are currently legally being disputed and also differ from region to region.

It's important to remember that even if Ukraine was an entirely ethnically Russian country, the invasion would still be wrong, just like it was wrong when Hitler attacked the Sudetenland.

As a fellow Slovak, i can't help but think that this world-class take on Putin's claims would be quite useful translated to our own language as well. Producing your content in English is of course absolutely reasonable in an English-speaking online world, but i'd say a lot of our neighbours don't have the possibility or the will to access counterpoints to Russian narrative in such a palatable format as this video of yours, and simply fall victim to it and adapt it as their own unchallenged opinion. Being from Slovakia, you surely know to what kind of political situation it leads - where questionable populist politicians make use of such an opinionated population, and how critically thinking some of our neighbours are (not :/). Would you perhaps consider translating this excellent piece to Slovak, or perhaps collaborating with some of our local UKposts channels please? It might really make a difference in people who "just don't know whom to trust" and a well-presented counterpoint might go a long way! :)

TBH, I doubt this video would change any minds, but thank you anyway for taking the time to make it as a good reference is always good to have.

I've been born and raised in Kyiv. I speak both Russian and Ukrainian - although I can barely write in Russian (can read it tho). And here's another funny consequence of the centuries of russification: I have a very ethnically Ukrainian surname. Only a few years ago I realized that our while life, everyone in my family were pronouncing it the Russian way. The way I realized that is, after moving to the US, and speaking English on a daily basis, I noticed that when saying my surname in English, I defaulted to switching the emphasis on a different syllable. Which happened to make my name sound more similar to other famous Ukrainian names thag end with the "enko" ending - such as Shevchenko, Honcharenko, Fomenko, etc. And then it hit me.

Thank you for your input. The history of Eastern Europe is really complex and really hard to compress in a short video. The Rusyns in particular are quite fascinating to me, a lot of people don't even know they exist.

putin: ukraine once was a part of russia we are just taking it back literally every country with had an empire once: hold my beer

This is a great video. One component to the Ukrainian identity is missing. The Cossacks of the Black Sea coast, and how Ukraine briefly unified with them to try to secure a fully independent kingdom.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! the Russo-Ukrainian war is an interesting reminder of the 19th century marrying together of ethnic and national identities, and it's one which I had naively hoped was no longer of concern in the modern world. It's an important service that the use and misuse of history by politicians is dissected and analysed. I wish it were less divisive to do so

As a Ukrainian I can't thank you enough for this video. I know that we aren't ideal, and I can agree that our laws may be harsh for ethnic minorities, yet I am certain these issues will be resolved in the future. You need to understand that for the past 8 years we were at war with Russia, and you cannot even imaginve the extent of propaganda war Russia waged against us. You agree to recognize rusyn language and their ethnicity? Be assured that in a month's time russians will use it to cause all manner of provocation to question your territorial integrity in that region. We have that story with hungarian minorities on the border, couple of years ago there was an issue people from that region had with the fact that they were forced to use ukrainian language while many people from the villages used hungarian or other languages. Hungary, being pro-russian, immediately jumped to the occasion and with the help of russian propaganda started creating the narrative that maybe those bordering territories should not be Ukrainian in the first place. It is very tiring to live under constant pressure like that, when your neighbors want to destabilise your country, constantly question your right for nationality, your regional integiry etc. In the face of such events it's all to easy to be a bit draconian with our laws to preserve our identity and territories. In the end of a day, we just want to be left alone, we do not want anything from anyone. If you check the map of UNR from 1918, you can see that there are a bunch more terriotories there than we have now - so what? We don't have any territorial claims even though we could, we do not question other countries territorial integrity based on the fact that they have ukrainian-speaking minorities, or because they mistreat ukrainians. I hope that the war will end in our victory, Russia will finially chill, and we can go back to peace times, when we can make laws and policies for the prosperity of all.

In the light of what's happening today, I'd like to remind you all how the First Czechoslovak Republic came short with Subcarpathian Rus almost the same way they did with Crimea now. Not as that region was of any significance in terms of resources, but the scenario soviets performed back then was pretty similar. The faith of, per that time the autonomous subject of Czechoslovakia, was decided to join Ukrainian SSR while having only Czech and Russian representatives on the table. Not as if they asked any people from Subcarpathian Rus or Ukraine. Of course, many people in Subcarpathia were shifting their political views towards Ukrainian identity for a few decades by that time, but the very same ugly action from the 'bigger brother' to decide everything for the people, while ignoring their own voice, just makes me mad. As a Subcarpathian Rusyn, as a citizen of Ukraine, I just can't watch this horror going on again and again. WW2 destroyed my grandparents' lives, and now I'm facing the same story happening.

Concerning the status of the Rusyn language in Ukraine - it is a bit controversial, as the Transcarpathian regional administration actually recognized it as a distinct language in 2007. That, sadly, had no further implications, such as schools or publishing. Rusyn schools, or rather 'saturday schools' existed here up to 2017-2018, but they all were funded by people, zero funds from the government on this. Publishing books in Rusyn is a thing here, but once again, purely funded by authors themselves. On the other hand, I need to admit, that there is a Rusyn TV Show on state television (!), and I'm serious right now, it is called 'Русинська Родина' (basically 'a Rusyn Family'), so everything is not as bad as it might be. The official position of the government always rather to ignore the question altogether.

16:30: Ukrainians: Bless you! You have freed us! Erich Koch: I wouldn't say "freed". More like "under new management"

Thank you for this super well sourced video 👍😎 And extra credit for detailing not only when the source for a quote was published, but also the date you retrieved it 🌟👌

For people who think this linguistic nationalism is somehow unprecedented in democratic countries, consider that Quebec currently has a law almost identical to Ukraine's law. This is called Bill 101, and forces the vast majority of the population to study in French. L'Office Québécois de la Langue Française also enforces the policy that non-French communications must always have a French translation. Actually, all these language laws sound just like Quebec. It something that linguistic groups do when they feel threatened by immersion in a larger language group. It's petty and it's nationalistic, but it's by no means "genocide".

Fantastic job mentioning Rusyns here. It is unfortunate we have been used as political pawns once again by forces greater than our own.

As someone with a quarter Ukrainian ancestry (my grandmother's family is from Lviv), I found this video interesting!

here from a plug oversimplified made to come visit you. your coverage on the topic was excellent and indepth. well done!

If you do believe in Russia Reasoning, they why can’t the British empire unite, the Roman, the German. You see it’s a slippery slope before everyone does it and we’re right back where we started in 1939

Watching this I've remembered a thing that bothers me about Rusyns, which is that if the eastern part of Czechoslovakia had not been randomly cut of and given to Ukraine during USSR, almost all Rusyns would be now living in Slovakia enjoying much greater freedom of national expression than in Ukraine. Now they are just scattered between Slovakia, Ukraine and Poland. I feel kind of bad for them. To me they seem to be the most affected victims of "nobody asked us" phenomena of USSR. Curios what other Slovaks/Rusyns/Ukrainians think about this.

Just a small note: russians were a biggest ethnic group even before WW2 and all deportations. In 1926 census 42% of population was russian (tatars 25%). If we look at 1897 census, then the percentage of russians will be still very high - 33% (tatars 35%), so it's not right to assume that crimea was majority tatar before WW2. I'm not justifying russian annexation of Crimea ofc, but yea, russians did live in crimea for more than a century and were the biggest ethnic group there.

Hey, I'm also Polish (Pomerania) and I almost exclusively watch UKposts in English. Your voice and English are really good! Keep making more videos - only way is up for you! Subbed!

Thank you for the video. I am Bulgarian and we have a similar issue with N.Macedonia. We claim that we are one people, basically what Putin is saying, but the countries changed. Can you research it independentely and make a video regarding that issue. My question is - when Bulgarians claim that N. Macedonians are Bulgarians, but with a new artificial ethnic identity, have they any solid ground to stay and metaphorically? It's also an extremely interesting topic in similar light to the current video you have uploaded, but with a Balkan tinge. I guess I have my biases as a Bulgarian, although I've read alot of history. N. Macedonians(alot of them atleast), we already, they are more than biased. Can you make a video in which you, as an un-biased Slovak, justly research this issue and present it to us? If you do it, please start from medieval up through modern and even contemporary(?) history.

22:29 While representing Moldova as being part of the EU/Romania is very based, it sadly isn't accurate at this moment.

Such an informed take! We often fail to realize just how dynamic ethnic identity is.

Imagine China doing uno reverse and attack vladivostok/outer manchuria. like, it belonged to the qing empire so I'll take it back. If it happens it will be the backstab of the century ahah.

Quite objective and reasoned video. As a Ukrainian, I like that the information is presented quite constructively with in-depth study of the topic, and not as if a person had just learned about the existence of this country and after reading an article in twenty minutes to express hypocritical sympathy for us or against Ukraine ,as if we were not living people, but heroes of a TV series or football match. Recently, I saw the guy support Russia just because he likes the Bolsheviks

This is a great video, explaining a lot of stuff I've been occasionally ranting about in the UKposts comments for over a decade now, except far better. Of course much more could be added in details. There were some particular bits, which I feel specifically compelled to comment about due to my Polish perspective but maybe I'll do that later in separate comments (or in responses to other comments). Anyway, for years I wished for the people in the 'west' and in the whole world to pay more attention to the history of this part of Europe. I never imagined my wish would kinda come true in such terrible circumstances. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.

Probably the best video on Ukraine-Russia's shared history I've seen

Excellent, thanks for the free Video Matus and some much needed context.

Wow Very well done Sir. Short, sweet, & to the point. Thank you Hoooah.

If Russia wasn’t corrupt, authoritarian, and other shady shenanigans, maybe some wouldn’t mind Slav unification…

this video is criminally underrated, only 80k views? this should have MILLIONS!!

Very good video, there's a paper I actually wrote on this subject and how the Russian leadership uses this history to justify itself in many of the former Soviet and Russian imperial territories. It's amazing to see it play out in this video. Good job!!!

Thank you for your clear and simple explanation of the history of the Ukraine people and the diverse ethnic background. It is all new to me even at 66yrs old as a New Zealander. We were not taught any Slavic or Russian history growing up. I have been to Kazakhstan and have a great respect for all people from these countries with so much conflict and suffering in their history. I sincerely hope peace will be achieved soon and that the needless killing and the horrific destruction will stop. 🙏🙏❤

The volume and intensity of the resistance to the Russian invasion tells you how Ukraine feels about Putin's claims.

True story there are drawings done by a eight year old boy living in Kievan Rus in the 12th century found recently. They are adorable drawings done by a little boy from almost a thousand years ago. The drawings are of knights and monsters. They are little sketches done by the little boy during school. It’s cool because it gives us insight into what living like a child back then was like. I thought it was pretty cool to find doodles done by a child from that long ago.

thank you for you video, and to put historical facts into perspective. I learnt a lot from you today.

You are the first youtuber to talk about Rusyns. I’ve been begging others for a while now to talk about them. Thank you so much! I hope to hear others talk about Rusyns in the near future!

This is a fantastic video, and anyone with questions about the war should watch this!

It’s like if USA try to invade Latinoamerica just because we identify ourselves as Americans too (from America, the continent)... ohh wait... Manifest Destiny lol

If the Mongols, Arabs,Spanish, French or even worse the English get ahold of such superb logic for war we are all screwed, expect to hear throat singing and a mini earthquake of hooves, exactly one 5 seconds later after the "history" class gets to Mongolia.

This is a good resource for my paper I am writing, keep up the good work

Thank you for this video, this is the proper way to beat propaganda, not calling out fake news (which it is) but actually explaining why it's fake news with sources and evidence. In an unrelated topic, you previously made videos of the early history of all Eastern European people, are you planning to do a video on the early history of Romanians/Moldavians?

Finally someone shut down putins lies

I like your voice and calm demeanor explaining everything a lot!

2:28 "I'm a strong, mature adult, I won't cry" 2:33 rolls in the floor crying like a little baby

I'm confused about the narkomnats. You say that they based their borders on many historical factors to define which lands would go to national Soviet governments, yet Siberia has many large areas where russians are a minority, the north had Finnish related people and the south has Chechens. Am I missing something?

Concerning minority languages, there is no Moldavian language. Moldavians speak Romanian. The Moldavian language is a Russian invention, so Moldova would still be influenced by Moscow and not get close to it's sister country, Romania.

It’s easy for Putin to argue his points without Ukrainian perspective. The fact that a majority of Ukrainians support independence over annexation or alliance with Russia says a lot about Putin’s horseshit excuses. “Genocide of Russians.” If Ukrainians and Russians are one people, Genocide makes no sense, especially when Ukrainians obviously know the history of their own homeland. That’s like Trump or Biden invading Canada and telling Canadians a “history” of how Americans and Canadians are one people, and that Britain created the “Canadian identity” to weaken America

If you look into it of course every national narrative is both a specific point of view and highly simplified versions of real history, sometimes also added with fantasy. That's true for pretty much any country to different degrees. Several people/countries could legitimately "claim" any historical civilization, culture, area or people, with different levels of reasonability.

Thank you for the great explanations and let people understand what was the way of Ukraine. Best regards.♥

We ukranians have been fighting for our freddom from polish and russian rule for 400 years, just facts

That last clause, in particular, visibly annoyed Putin. “The monuments in Europe,” he told his fellow authoritarian leaders, “were erected to our regular Red Army soldiers. … They were mainly farmers and workers, many of whom also suffered from the Stalin regime-some of them were repressed kulaks, some had family members sent to labor camps. These people died as they were liberating the European countries from Nazism.” But it wasn’t just Putin’s comments that were unusual; it was how he delivered them. In front of him, Putin had a thick pile of archival documents, from which he read at length in support of his version of history.

Hey, there seems to be some technical problems in your videos when ever I try to watch them through TV. The problem disappears when i switch to smartphone or pc.

This is good info more people need to know about this .. I knew it was smattering of the history of the vicinity dating back to the 8th and 9th century but nothing is detailed as what has been mentioned here again very informative

I'm Ukrainian, and thanks a lot for this video. It's very well researched and accurate, and I hope that it reaches as many people as possible. Great job 👍

This reminds me of Minitrue from 1984, where many of its employees were told to erase any signs or proofs of history before the birth of Ingsoc, including sensoring old newspapers, manipulating history, etc.

Can anyone elaborate on 24:26 where Lazer notes the "the language of the respective indigenous people" vs. "the language of their minority"? Preferably with a simple example? I feel that needs some unpacking. I suspect that my confusion results from imagining a country in which there is generally only one major minority language (e.g., Canada with French, at least if you overlook the First Nation and Inuit languages), and not multiple indigenous languages spoken in the same location (e.g., Ukrainian, Greek and Russian).

I live in eastern Slovakia very close to the Ukranian border living in and surrounded by rusyn villages. They all consider themselves cousins of Ukranians but not Ukranian.

one comment - poles do not deny that we had collaborators during II WW. you are talking about private opinion of SOME people and SOME politicians. your comment is quite hurtful. BUT great job anyway, well done.

Always looking forward to your videos,

Thanks for all this detailed background. I always figured the separate Ukrainian language and culture didn't pop up overnight meaning Putin was clearly full of ... something ... but it's always good to know actual facts.

As a history buff and a Russian citizen, I never expected Putin warping history like that.

This has been very enlightening. European history has been a passion of mine for a long time, but my knowledge of eastern european have always been a bit lacking. Thank you for providing context for the conflict in Ukraine.

This is so interesting! I am from Austria love eastern slavic culture and slavic culture in general so much! Thank you for this thorough research and analysis!! Edit: i also really get how ukrainians want to be their own identity. As an austrian, i have met so many ignorant people who just call us germans or don’t even know that we are a country. It’s not the same situation ukraine is in, by far, since our relationship to Germany is pretty good, but i just get how they wanna be recognized as a separate entity rather than just labeling them as „russians“.

Challenge: take a shot everytime he says: "Rus"

This makes me think. Can the byzantine called themselves Roman? The same goes for the HRE. They are inhabited by different people.

Thank you for this. It is very helpful to have a concise counter narrative to the overwhelming Putin propaganda. I will try to point many people to this.

This “russification” sounds Scarily similar to the One china goal of the CCP that it uses to justify reeducating the Uyghur chinese to turn them into Han chinese

Missed this one when you released it. But thanks for doing this.

Very interesting video, and very well made! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Excellent and insightful. Ďakujem.

Great video, thanks a lot for this.

Thank you for your work. I really appreciate it.

Well researched and presented. Amazing that the Ukraine somehow survived. Slava Ukraini!

Love your vids and the points you bring up MLazer, disagree with some things on this one, agree on others. But I'm just a YT commentator competing with hundreds of other voices and bots.If I knew you in real life, it would be an honour to discuss these topics with you.

Can you do a similar video on Taiwan? The same propaganda used by Russia is also used by China, despite Taiwan has never been part of communist China, and have a lot less to do with China than people will assume. The history behind it is quite interesting yet complex.

A very helpful graphic that is missing would be one showing how few Russian-speakers there were in Ukraine according to the 1926 Soviet Census - just 2,7 million. By 1990 there were 11 million, most of them the result of Russian colonization in my lifetime. Furthermore, it shows that Ukrainian-speakers were then in a relative majority in some neighbouring areas of southern Russia (i.e, Kuban). In other words, the original borders of the Ukrainian SSR were drawn in favour of the Russian RSFSR. Now Russia wants to steal even more Ukrainian land.

Very deep, accurate and detailed explanation. Thank you.

Hey i have one question for you why did the horse archery decline in hungary

Really amazing presentation. Well done.

Very helpful & well-timed explanation. Thank you. Good work.

This is so much more relevant with his disastrous interview with Carlson

Great summary, thanks

I think that the problem is in Crimea it is very strategical place and Russia can't cope with losing it during communist period. Also I doubt that rusians in Donetsk and Luhansk could integrate in wester Ukraine and therefor it was easy for Putin to turn them into separatists. Maybe Ukraine could have integrated separatists into their state if they had more time but I think after leveling their cities it all fell to the ground which Putin hoped for because after that lines were drawn.

Dope info 👍 and easy to understand, thank you

its funny that the russians think that ukrainians are similar to them while clearly being different, yet at the same time they tell moldovans that they are different from the romanians when these 2 peoples are identical since not so long ago they were part of the same country.

This is a long and detailed video, nice! 😄

Just imagine some fool claiming that you are his brother, and believing such rubbish so much that he tries to kidnap you. Politicians can be morons.

thanks....this video was a little more understandable of Ukrainian's oh so complicated history. It seems Ukraine has always been stuck in the middle of a very tense situation....FREE UKRAINE from tyrant FOREVER!!!

Thank you for the history lesson. I was recommended your channel and am very happy I've found, watched and now subscribed to it. Keep up the Great work 😊 ✌

Uralic speakers caught up in the middle.

Volga Germans were also heavily persecuted by the Russian Imperial government. Initially Czarina Catherine II invited Germans to colonize along the Volga River in the 18th Century. However, Alexander II eroded much of the rights of the Volga Germans, including being forced to constript. This persecution forced many Volga Germans to emigrate to other parts of Europe or the Americas. I contacted the Bishop of Saratov in 2011. I asked him whether he knew of any records remaining of the Volga Germans. Unfortunately we suspected that those records were destroyed by Stalin before or during WWII. The remaining Volga Germans were exiled to Siberia, killed, or deported. In a way, what is happening to the Ukrainians is reminiscent of the struggles faced by the Volga Germans.

Very interesting and helpful video. Thank you!

To note a couple of things: on the past-WW2 map you also show the MSSR, but its borders were actually a bit. When Crimea was transferred to Ukraine, so were the Moldovan Ismail and Chernauți. Also, when Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, he did so because it was apparently cheaper to deliver potable water and to the peninsula from Ukrainian territory than it was from Russian territory, so in this case it was more than just his whim. Also, in October 2023 Romania and Ukraine made an agreement that Ukraine stopped recognizing Moldovan as a language and just referred to it as Romanian (they apparently first started discussing this in late November, 2022, though it's probably been a topic for longer). The process is on-going, with three 'Moldovan' schools in Odessa becoming 'Romanian' schools, in January, 2024. In the Republic of Moldova itself, the official "final" shift from Moldovan to Romanian happened in March, 2023, to some controversy. The topic of 'Romanian - Moldovan' is, of course, a whole separate can of worms and gets a lot of people riled up. The gist of it is that Moldovan was a Soviet creation, a tool to discourage secessionists and pro-Romanian movements in the AMSSR and later the MSSR.

TLDR: They've always thought they own more land and power than they do.

Topic suggestion: the Law Merchant, where trade fair merchants settled disputes at trade fairs. Lex Mercatoria, says Wikipedia.

Around 18th century there's actually some short of debate among Russian imperial courts and administration on how exactly they govern other Rus' people. On one side some prefer a model like Great Britain which would creates nominally independent kingdoms under real union with Tsar in Moscow while in other side which was the majority prefer French model in which force Russification should be done on Belorussians and Ukrainians just like French forcefully Frenchified diverse people of France to create a united and compact state.

25:05 Ah, that is why it wasnt on the list. So sad man, I would really love Carpathia to be independend. Such a cool little nation. + it would make the borders look better.