Summary of notes on "Historical Russian-Ukrainian Relations" – Russia's love-hate relationship with Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized special military operations against Ukraine. Putin told the Ukrainian soldiers: You are taking an oath to the people, not the government that came to power after the national coup, and I call for immediate laying down of arms and going home.

Ukraine and Russia's today's clash of knives is a continuation of yesterday's flames.

★ Yesterday's flames and smoke

Brotherly love and hate

◆ Kievan Rus' period

In 482 AD, the East Slavs established the city of Kiev and came into contact with the Byzantine Empire and Christianity;

▲ In 882 AD, the East Slavic Rus tribe went south to occupy Kiev and established a loose alliance of "Rus' states" - the Principality of Kievan Rus;

At its peak, Kievan Rus' territory stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north, the Black Sea in the south, the Polish border in the west, and the Volga River in the east, making it the largest country in Europe at that time.

▲ Grand Duke Vladimir of the Principality of Kievan Rus chose the Orthodox Church, during which the economy, religion and literary language developed rapidly, with 400 churches and the most beautiful Hagia Sophia;

▲ The Kievan Rus' promulgated the Rus' Code, and the Rus' entered the legal society;

Kievan Rus' is the common spiritual wealth of the three later Rus' countries (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine).

◆ Lithuanian-Polish period

▲ In the 13th century, the Mongols invaded, and the Principality of Kievan Rus ceased to exist. Northeast Rus' was occupied by the Mongols, forming a Russian nation. Southwest Rus' was annexed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, forming two peoples, Belarus and Ukraine.

The Rus' began to migrate to Moscow, establishing the Muscovite Principality and becoming independent from the Mongols in 1480. In 1547, the monarch of the Muscovite Principality called himself the "Tsar", and the Russian Empire was born, beginning the process of searching for a coastline and recovering the Rus' principalities.

In 1569, Lithuania united with Poland against the Russian Empire and incorporated the Ukrainian region into polish territory.

Poland plundered the land of a large number of Ukrainian peasants, serfdom the peasants, and forced Ukrainians to practice Catholicism.

In 1648, an uprising broke out in Ukraine against Polish rule, but it did not gain full independence and had to seek refuge from Russia.

◆ During the Russian Empire

▲ In January 1654, Ukraine and Russia signed the Pereyaslav Agreement, and in March the March Ordinance was signed, and Ukraine was declared a vassal of the Russian Tsar, and Tsar Ivan the Terrible named it Ukraine.

Russia fought a 13-year war with Poland over Ukrainian land.

In 1667 and 1686, Russia signed two treaties with Poland, incorporating Kiev and the lands east of the Dnieper into Russia, and the days of Ukrainian rule under Moscow began. "Russification" replaced "Polishization".

In the mid-17th century, western Ukraine was divided into two parts, the land of the "left bank of the Dnieper River in Ukraine" belonged to Russia, and the land on the "right bank of the Dnieper River in Ukraine" belonged to Poland.

From the 17th to the 19th century, Poland and Ukraine were in the center of the land struggle between European countries and the Russian Empire.

After the middle of the 18th century, Catherine II came to power, dismembered Central Ukraine into 3 provinces, and participated in the partition of Poland three times, and the whole territory of Ukraine belonged to Russia.

In the 1860s and 1870s, the Russian government further cracked down on the destruction of Ukrainian culture, closed Ukrainian schools, banned the Ukrainian language, and banned the publication of books on Ukraine.

When World War I broke out in 1914, most of Ukraine belonged to the Russian Empire, and the western Galicia region belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As many as 3.5 million Ukrainians fought in the Russian army and 250,000 Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian army.

◆ Period of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

In 1917, the February Revolution declared the collapse of the Tsarist regime, and western Ukraine was ceded to Poland, which signed agreements with Soviet Russia and the Second Polish Republic in the name of an independent state.

In 1922, Ukraine joined the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Central Committee of the Soviet Union classified the Ukrainian-populated areas occupied by other countries as Ukraine's sphere of influence, including Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk and other regions where ethnic Russians had lived for more than two hundred years.

Under the guidance of Lenin's national policy, Ukraine gained great opportunities for development, but after Lenin's death, Stalin adopted a policy of Russification of Ukraine.

From 1931 to 1933, a rainstorm of total collectivization severely devastated rural productivity, and a great famine broke out in Ukraine; 144,000 people starved to death in 1932 and 3,238,000 people in 1933.

The purge of Ukrainian intellectuals and politicians in 1937-1938.

During World War II, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist Stepan Bandra cooperated with Nazi Germany. After World War II, the Soviet Union exiled 200,000 Ukrainian nationalists who had assisted the Germans.

▲ During the Soviet period, Ukraine was the second brother second only to Russia, and science, technology, industry and education were very developed. Many of the top Soviet leaders were Ukrainians.

In 1954, Khrushchev, who grew up in the Ukrainian region, donated the Crimea region, which originally belonged to Russia, to Ukraine.

◆ Period of the Russian Federation

On August 24, three days after the August 19 incident in 1991, Ukraine officially announced its secession from the Soviet Union.

In December, a referendum in favor of independence won 90 percent of the total vote, compared with 54 percent in Crimea.

Ethnic Russians in southeastern Ukraine rarely see themselves as Ukrainians, while a large number of nationalist parties have emerged in the midwest to make strong anti-Russian demands.

In 2003, Ukraine's then-President Kuchma called for condemnation at the 58th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, and the Stalinist regime consciously created the "great famine" as an "act of genocide."

In the CIS, Ukraine does not join the security system, and economic construction should be shirked. However, it has signed the Charter of Principles of Cooperation, Friendship and Partnership with the United States and the Charter of Special Relations with NATO.

In 1991, then-US President George W. Bush supported Gorbachev and opposed Ukrainian independence.

In 1992, the Russian parliament unilaterally repealed the 1954 resolution that classified Crimea as Ukraine. In 1993, a decree was adopted on the recovery of the city of Sevastopol, an important naval base city in Crimea.

In 2014, in a referendum in Crimea, 97% of the people were in favor of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia, and then joining the Russian Federation. The conflict in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine has gradually intensified, and as of now, it has lasted for eight years.

★ Want to say two words

◆ In the first sentence, everything must be based on reality.

Huntington said in "The Clash of Civilizations" that the junction of civilization circles is often an area with a high incidence of political conflict, like an earthquake active zone. This is also the tragedy of Ukraine, although there is a strong desire for independence, but the surrounding environment and its own strength make it impossible for you to achieve your dreams. The wrong choice to take a clear political stance is indeed a curse. Since it is difficult to completely get rid of the regional and political fetters between the two mountains of Europe and Russia, why not choose to remain neutral, revive the economy, benefit the people, and wait quietly.

◆ Another sentence, long live Mao Zedong, long live the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea.

In the world game, the strong countries are chess players, the medium countries are chess pieces, and the small countries and weak countries are chessboards. What is the difference between the land of China between the Opium War of 1840 and the founding of New China in 1949 and the current Ukraine? But China produced a Mao Zedong. Under the guidance of the great military and political thinking of Mao Zedong, the Chinese nation has awakened together and won three consecutive victories in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the War of Liberation, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, especially the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. China is no longer a pawn and a chessboard.

★ In short, time does not stop, the fight continues, and the game does not stop. "Being advanced now does not mean being advanced forever" and "The greatness of the Communist Party of China does not lie in not making mistakes, but in never hiding illness and avoiding medical treatment, daring to face problems head-on, and daring to carry out self-revolution." Only when the Chinese nation jointly pursues its own suffering and how we have achieved glory, can we jointly move towards the future and never be a chess piece or a chessboard.