Ukraine has always been […] : A response to Tucker Carlson.

Image source: Foreign Policy (A woman walks past graves in the Lychakiv military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on June 1.)

Recently a friend of mine, during a conversation that touched on the war in Ukraine, whilst not openly advocating Russia’s war in Ukraine, made the comment “Ukraine was always part of Russia”.

Can you please give me a pithy response to this type of statement?

Those two paragraphs are an e-mail from my friend, a Latvian Australian in Sydney. The email arrived this Saturday, just as Tucker Carlson’s interview with Putin has been making rounds. The interview revealed little new about Putin’s thinking. His thesis remains unchanged: “Ukraine does not exist”.

Is the answer in history?

My first impulse in response to this email is to offer a tour of history from Kyiv Rus till now, and trust that historical facts speak louder than ignorance. I’ll do so shortly. But for now, I’d like you to contemplate the present.

Kyiv Rus’, a medieval state with the centre in Kyiv, was in existence long before any state on the territory of Russia was formed. Here’s Tymothy Snyder on the history of that period: “That name “Rus” came to be associated with the land and its people and with Christianity. But “Russia” as Putin is using it, when it refers to anything specific, is an empire founded in St. Petersburg (a city that did not exist at the time of Kyivan Rus) in 1721. That Russian Empire was named “Russian” precisely as a claim to lands and to history. But just because Peter the Great made a clever public relations decision half a millennium after the Mongols took Kyiv does not mean that there was a Russia when the Mongols arrived. There was not.”

…or is the answer in the present?

The present is is this: Ukrainians have been defending their statehood at enormous cost. Lives lost, families broken, missiles landing on civilian buildings, heartbreak, torture, tears, — have been part of Ukrainian reality for two years now.

Uncertainty about the Western support creeping in, artillery shells running out, children crying out in despair at their fathers’ funerals, cities desolate, empty streets amidst the fear of yet another round of Russian attacks — yet Ukrainians keep on fighting. Businesses keep operating. Every garage is a small factory of of FPV drones. Exports keep flowing.

We keep on fighting — for what, you may ask? What would we fight for, if Ukraine did not exist?

Amidst all this, Ukraine remains a functioning state, and a resilient economy with innovative ways of conducting warfare despite the shortage of munitions and an enormous death toll.

Our food, according to British journalists, still beats British pubs, our book market is booming, our stand-up comedy is finding a new voice, and our culture is finally decolonising its voice on the world stage, finally ridding itself from the Russian colonial version of the Ukrainian history.

I visited Ukraine three times during the war. I still bring bags of chocolates to Australia, — which, to everyone’s surprise, — taste better than anything they’ve tried here.

When home, I still order vyshyvanka shirts and books from internet retailers, to see them arrive by post in 24 hours or less — something I hardly experienced with Australian Amazon in peace time.

I still get taken aback when eating out in Lviv, when a flat white lives up to the most stringent Sydney standards, and coffee shops serve pastries with elaborate designs that in Australia are only reserved for expensive restaurants.

Does Ukraine exist? Go check it out! You may come across reality you did not expect.

The reality is, Ukraine exists in people who keep coffee shops open under missile strikes. Ukraine exists in people who fight for no other reason than being Ukrainian. Ukraine exists in people who were tortured, raped, killed — and refused to surrender.

Does that reality help with believing that Ukraine exists?

Why care?

The present matters, because it’s in the present that the will of the people is revealed. The obvious counterargument to any narrative that states “Ukraine is not a state”, — is “Have you asked the Ukrainians?”

Well, you do not have to ask. You may simply observe what Ukrainians do in the face of challenge to their statehood. And the answer is — Ukrainians fight. Ukrainians want nothing to do with Russia. Ukrainians are dying every day to defend their country against Russia. Ukrainians — both at home and overseas — have mobilised every last resource to do just this: remain Ukrainian.

If the history of two world wars has taught us anything, it is that one cannot impose imperial will at nations that self-identify as separate people. One cannot impose foreign rule and hope that people will accept it.

Ukrainian people will keep fighting for justice, and for their right to govern themselves in their own state. People will rebel against an imposition of foreign power against their will.

Unless this struggle for justice is acknowledged as a force of history, we simply will remain in a perpetual state of war.

The right of nations to their self-determination is an integral part of human rights at large.

A caricature of history

Putin’s idea that some nations are “true” and others “artificial” — is genocidal in nature, as it gives some nations (aka the Russians) the right to kill others (aka the Ukrainians) purely out of spite (aka “How dare you exist?”).

Putin’s interpretation of history is also a caricature. He selectively mentions historical facts that have little to do with Russia (e.g., the existence of Kyivan Rus’). Then, he uses those “facts” to justify the myth that Russia is somehow an eternal state, and that “Ukraine has always been part of Russia” (note: Russia did not exist at the time of Kyivan Rus’). For a through walk through all the historical falsehoods in Putin’s interview, read Tymothy Snyder’s blog.

To say that “Ukraine has always been part of Russia” is a bit like saying that “Germany has always been part of Italy” or “Hungary has always been part of Austria” (because: Germany was in fact part of the Holy Roman Empire once, and Hungary was part of the Habsburg Empire with the centre in Vienna).

But by that logic, it’s no less true to say that “Ukraine has always been part Lithuania”, because the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth included Kyiv for more than three hundred years — longer than Kyiv was part of Kyivan Rus, longer than Kyiv was ever part of the Russian Empire.

Just because Russia got away with being an imperial power, and colonising its neighbours (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltics) in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, doesn’t mean that Russia should get away with it in the 21st century, when after all the sacrifices of the two world wars, we hopefully evolved to the international order that protects countries from “wolf eats wolf” scenarios, and guarantees nations the right to self-determination.

Final words: the proof is in the pudding

Shortly after replying to the “Ukraine was always part of Russia” email, I spoke to my parents. My mum’s close friend lost her husband to the war last week. He was operating FPV drones, —the ones I’ve been reading about from the Economist.

My mum’s friend does not know how to tell her daughter that her father’s dead. I don’t know how to live another day with yet another Western discussion on whether or not Ukraine deserves military aid.

My blood boils when I imagine how many Ukrainian funerals could’ve been prevented, how many children not orphaned, if the Tucker Carlsons of this world reported truth, not lies.

So does Ukraine exist?

Well, I suggest that Tucker Carlson ask some Ukrainians. Or perhaps speaks to the widows of Ukrainian soldiers. Or visits the front-line. Or risks his life staying in downtown Kyiv during a Russian missile strike.

Hell, at a minimum, let him come and eat some croissants in Lviv, where Shahed drones fly on occasion, too.

The proof, they say, is in the pudding.

P.S. Thanks for reading! I keep my posts free, but here’s a quick way to say thanks — donate to Return Alive Foundation, United24 or the KSE Foundation, and #StandWithUkraine! This is the best way to invest in freedom and ensure we live in a safe world