Russian president Vladimir Putin sees his country’s history as providing the essential justification for the war he is waging against the Ukrainian people. He has long used history as a propaganda weapon. In his rambling address on the eve of his invasion of Ukraine, he claimed that Ukraine’s independence has separated and severed “what is historically Russian land”. He also said “nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought”.
Putin is not known for asking those he rules what they think about anything. Nevertheless, his tendentious vision of Russian history is shared by millions of Russians.
According to Putin, Russia has always been a blameless victim of foreign aggression, heroically repelling invaders and foreign attempts to destroy Russia. Notable examples he often uses include the 1612 Polish-Lithuanian occupation of the Kremlin; the invasions of Charles XII of Sweden in 1708–9 and Napoleon in 1812; the Crimean War, and Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa in 1941.
