Putin told U.S. President George W. Bush at the NATO summit in April 2008: "George, you don't understand that Ukraine is not even a country. What is Ukraine? Part of its territory belongs to Eastern Europe; And a considerable part of the territory was given to us.".
Whether Ukraine is a country or not, what kind of country it is, we must first start with the origin of the word "Ukraine". At the beginning of the 12th century, the word "Ukraine" began to appear as a geographical concept, the earliest meaning was "frontier", meaning to refer to certain areas outside Kiev, after the 13th century, the geographical scope of the term "Ukraine" extended to most of present-day Ukraine, and gradually evolved into national, geographical and linguistic and cultural concepts.
The home country that embarrassed Russia, Kievan Rus'
The city of Kiev was founded in 482 AD by the Liaks of the Borian tribe of the East Slavs, and since then they have been in contact with the southern nomads and the Varyags who are also thieves and merchants in the north, and the East Slavic brothers in the north of Kiev are not as good as them, and finally rely on the advantage of "flexibility" of the mind, invite the Varyags to join, and finally get rid of the chaotic internal friction and open the era of the Rurik Dynasty.
By the second generation of the dynasty, Grand Duke Oleg, they took the city of Kiev and moved the center of rule from Novgorod to Kiev, establishing the Grand Duchy of Kievan Rus. Russia's home country with traceable history generally begins with Kievan Rus' . But the history of Russia, which goes back to other countries after Ukraine's independence, is a bit embarrassing. If it is a small country that traces its origin to the territory of a big country, the source of a big country is not in your territory, and you have to play the drum to open another source, it is conceivable that the Russians are also quite hot.
Did the Ukrainian nation inherit the orthodox mantle of Kiev Rosa?
Ukraine's traceable home country is not only Kievan Rus' that collided with Russia, but also the Duchy of Galicia-Warren. There were many large principalities in Kievan Rus's at that time with small principalities, and after the Mongol cavalry captured Kiev, they did not have the energy to break each principality, so there would always be some fish that slipped through the net, the Gilisia-Warren Principality was one of the largest, after most of the Kievan Rus' principalities were conquered by the Mongols, the Galicia-Volun Principality was fortunate to exist independently for more than 100 years, and they were considered to have survived the influence of the Golden Horde, continuing and inheriting the orthodox mantle of the Kievan Rus' state and culture. It played an important role in the formation and development of the Ukrainian nation.
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the Principality of Galicia-Warren, on the basis of maintaining its independence, engaged in mediation and military struggle with the Golden Horde, Poland, Hungary and Lithuania, in the process of promoting the formation and development of the common national identity of the people living in the land of present-day Ukraine, who gradually acquired their own language, religion, and unique characteristics of social, cultural and political and economic life. In the 14th century, Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary around the Principality of Gilesia-Warren broke free from Mongol rule and gradually recovered, Lithuania occupied the area around Kiev and most of the Principality of Warren, Poland took the western part of galicia and the Principality of Warren, and the independent Duchy of Galicia-Warren ceased to exist.
There is no such thing as "Ukraine"?
For more than four hundred years, the Ukrainians living here and their descendants failed to establish a state on their own, and during this time Ukraine existed only as a geographical and ethnological concept, because there was no such a state as Ukraine, but their national identity was continuously continued and developed in their struggle for national independence. Until the rise of the Cossacks in Ukraine, the peasant revolts were raging, and in the struggle against polish aristocratic rule, the Cossack leaders, who were seriously underpowered, set their sights on Tsarist Russia, the neighbor of the north, which had become bigger and stronger.
At this time, Russia had not experienced the luck of the Duchy of Gilesia-Warren, but the Golden Horde that could not kill it also made it stronger, and after several transformations, Russia had become very different from their former East Slavic brothers. The Cossack leaders came to the door for help, and the Russian side of the abacus had been laid. After negotiations, the Cossack leaders accepted the Moscow Tsar as monarch and swore allegiance to the Tsar. The famous Pereya Slavic Agreement was also signed, which provided for Ukraine to receive Russian protection.
The "Little Russian" nation is an independent nation distinct from the Russian nation
Tsarist Russia then fought a thirteen-year war with the Kingdom of Poland over land in Ukraine. The Cossacks also oscillated between Poland and Russia, establishing their own power, but always clinging only to the powerful. By the time of Catherine, regional leaders of Ukraine, with a high degree of autonomy, were directly appointed to the rank of local governor. Since then, most of Ukraine has entered a historical period of Russification.
The Tsarist Empire pursued a fully Russified colonial policy on Ukrainian soil, known as "Little Russia". Despite the tireless efforts of the Tsarist authorities to suppress the Ukrainian language and culture and national identity, the flame of the revival of Ukrainian national culture has never been extinguished. Ukrainian intellectuals enumerated a large number of precious historical archives, emphasized the uniqueness of Ukraine to Russia, and proposed that Kievan Rus' was not a country created by Russians, but by small Russians. The Little Russian Nation is a separate ethnic group that is distinct from Russia.
At the end of the 19th century, the intellectuals who grew up began an important ideological shift, they abandoned the previous Self-identification of the Rus' people and began to use a new title Ukrainian, this change of title, which was of great significance to the identity of the modern Ukrainian nation, emphasizing the commonality of all Ukrainian speakers in Eastern Europe, and advocating that Ukrainians and Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles are a nation. In the 1890s, Ukrainian social activists proposed Ukrainian independence as the ultimate goal of the Ukrainian national movement.
The gains and losses of Ukraine during the Soviet era
The "February Revolution" in Russia of 1917 encouraged the many peoples in Tsarist Russia to strive for greater autonomy and the right of nations to self-determination. There was a protracted military conflict over much of Ukraine, and ukrainians established several short-lived independent republics. Poland, Austria-Hungary, and Germany took part in the battle for Kiev. In 1921, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, with the support of the Red Army, essentially controlled most of the eastern, southern and central parts of Ukraine, to which the former Tsarist Empire belonged.
In the beginning, the Soviet government adopted a policy of tolerance for Ukrainian national culture, politically implemented a policy of "Ukrainianization" or "localization", promoted and appointed a large number of cadres of Ukrainian origin, popularized the Ukrainian language, and gave the Ukrainian language the status of russian equivalent. It promotes the inheritance and development of Ukrainian culture, but does not involve the issue of political independence. In the era of industrialization and collectivization, the Soviet Union launched an "anti-Ukrainianization" movement in Ukraine in the name of opposing "nationalist tendencies", a large number of Ukrainian newspapers, publications and school textbooks were converted into Russian, and many Ukrainian writers and artists were imprisoned and exiled and even executed.
"Eat my spit me out, take mine and send me back?"
When the Soviet-German War broke out, Ukrainian nationalists pinned their hopes on Germany's assistance in establishing an independent Ukrainian state, so they did not hesitate to act as a "leading party" for the German army, cooperated with the German army to fight against the Soviet Red Army, and also hunted down Jews and Poles, leaving many historical stains. Later in the war, the Soviet army launched a counter-offensive, not only recapturing the territory of pre-war Ukraine, but also expanding part of its territory to the west, and allocating some of the territory occupied by Romania, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to Ukraine. After Stalin's death, the successor Supreme Leader of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev (a Ukrainian), not only gave Ukraine a lot of preferences in terms of policy and economy, but also gave the Crimea region to Ukraine with a big wave. It can be said that without the Soviet army and the gifts of the Soviet Union, Ukraine would not have occupied such a large territory on its own.
It is no wonder that russia now has a reluctance to help you regain so much territory, and give some places, which are regarded as your own territory, but after you became independent, instead of thinking a little good, you also helped NATO to besiege Russia in various runs, so even in the eyes of Westerners, Russia, which cannot afford to lose a little, must want Ukraine to "eat me and spit it out, take mine and send me back." Therefore, it is determined that Russia wants to retake Ukraine, Russia does not admit it, in fact, it has indeed begun some "encroachment", in order to avoid Russia continuing to "gain inches", the West feels that someone must intervene to deter it. In the past, every time the West struck, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't work, but at the critical moment they always had to try.