Zelenskyy rejects the narrative of common historical roots with Russia: “You are no Rus, you are a horde”

Alyona Mazurenko - Friday, 15 April 2022, 00:06

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has for the first time rejected the narrative of shared "historical roots" that is often repeated by Russian propagandists and the Russian president.

Source: Presidential video address

Quote: "Ancient Chernihiv. Which is over a thousand years old. Which had seen so many wars and so many invaders that it deserved peace and tranquillity at least in the twenty-first century. But... 

Russia came. Came with the worst that Chernihiv has experienced since the tenth century. From the time of that (ancient - ed.) Rus to which Russia once claimed a link. Now this myth is burnt out too. Rus would not destroy herself. Strangers did that to her. The Horde and other invaders. That's who has come to our land today. And they are fighting in the same way - for the sake of looting and for the sake of torture."

Details: According to Zelenskyy, Russians have demonstrated that they have chosen Donbas as the main target of their attack and want to destroy it.

In addition, the aggressors are forcing the inhabitants of these areas to join their army: "They throw them into the worst battles, literally head-on into our defences. They are destroying the towns and villages of Donbas."

The President added that "proud and tidy" Kharkiv has not seen such torments as Russia has now brought to it for 80 years.

Quote: "Why destroy it? What can be achieved by burning Kharkiv? What exactly can destruction in Saltivka or on Freedom Square give to Russia?

And these are no longer rhetorical questions. This is a question of how absurd this invasion of the Russian Federation is. How suicidal it is for everything that Russia allegedly ‘protects’. For Russian culture, for relations with this nation, even for the Russian language. Russia is burning all this with its weapons."

Significance: The erroneous thesis about "brotherly" peoples is used by Russian President Vladimir Putin, speculating on it in the media and with foreign politicians.

The Ukrainian authorities and Ukrainian people consider these words a mistake and an insult, because a nation that commits genocide and fights against a neighboring country cannot be "brotherly."

Prior to the full-scale invasion, Putin wrote several pseudo-historical articles about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. The Russian president believes that Ukraine was created by Lenin and that such a nation "does not exist."

He calls the Russians "Slavs" and the citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine "one people."

The fact that modern Russia is mostly the territory of nomadic Horde tribes does not embarrass the Russian president.

He also never mentions Holodomor and any attempt undertaken by Ukrainian people to form a state independent from Moscow's influence.

Putin refers to Crimea as "ancestral" Russian territory, but never mentions Kuban and other Russian border areas that have been considered Ukrainian in the 20th century.

Nor does Putin the "historian" mention anywhere in his articles the repression faced by the  Ukrainian-speaking population there in the twentieth century, the deportations, the special camps and other bans on Ukrainian culture. 

Background:
On 13 April, French President Emmanuel Macron, who is awaiting the second round of the presidential election, refused to call Russia's actions in Ukraine genocide and called the peoples of Russia and Ukraine "brotherly." Macron did not apologise for this statemenet and repeated the message that he did not acknowledge genocide.