by Jeremy Cohen
Putin justified his invasion of peaceful Ukraine in February 2022 by questioning the very idea that Ukraine has a national history distinct from Russia. At the core of this claim is the shared history of the Kievan Rus'. The article provides a critical analysis of the uses and abuses of Rus' history by both states and of their strategies to craft that history into a national narrative and weapon in the current war.
Irina Shcherbakova is a historian and human rights activist. She is a founding member of Memorial, where she is the director of the youth and education programms and a member of the International Memo...
Ostap Sereda is Associate Professor at the Departnemt of Modern und Contemporary Ukrainian History at the Ukrainian Catholic University in L'viv.
