Since 24 February 2022, Russia and Ukraine have each sung their own song, consistently. That is, the two sides in the conflict have consistently proclaimed conflicting narratives. 

Today is the second anniversary of the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s time I said something about it, particularly as the news coverage of the conflict hinges on communicating one narrative or another—the stories that we hear, and believe about it.

It is possible for two conflicting ideas to be correct at the same time, if seen from different points of view. But in this case, the core ideas are opposites. It comes down to whether Ukraine is a country, or not. 

Why is narrative important? 

Narrative, the story we understand about a situation and the world, the context, goes a long way to determining the reactions of people, societies, nations and militaries. You’ll support the side you believe is right.

Russia’s narrative, Putin’s narrative, has been echoed, repeated, aped and amplified for a long time, since well before 2022. You can find elements of it decades, even centuries ago. In fact, part of Putin’s communications strategy is to evoke history, when it suits his narrative. Like all successful lies, it contains important nuggets of truth.

None of that justifies the invasion of a country that Russia itself accepted as a sovereign nation in 1991.

Putin’s narrative

continues to be that Ukrainian culture and language are not real; that Ukrainians speak Russian (most do, as most educated people in western Europe speak English), and that Ukraine is not a real country.

Despite the fact that Russia recognized Ukraine as a sovereign nation in 1991, and has negotiated and signed a number of agreements with Ukraine since then. 

Ask any Canadian whether Ukrainian culture is real. Go ahead — ask one.

Putin also blames the West, especially the U.S.A., for acting in bad faith since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That may be true; Russia may indeed feel threatened by NATO’s eastward expansion since 1991. One of his nuggets of truth. 

None of that justifies war crimes. 

None of that justifies the invasion of a country that Russia itself accepted as a sovereign nation in 1991.

None of this justifies killing of civilians every single day.

None of this justifies kidnapping of children.

How to end the war

It’s simple. Russia withdraws its forces from Ukrainian territory, and indeed from all territory it occupies on other sovereign nations, such as Georgia.

Russia stops bombing other nations. 

If Russia has a problem with NATO, Russia sits down to serious talks with NATO and its members. 

But for any of that to happen, one other change is obviously needed: Putin has to be removed from power.

A few facts

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2014, immediately after the Revolution of Dignity, when the majority of Ukraine’s people chose, and died for, closer ties with Europe and away from Russia.

Russia then seized Crimea, and financed, supported and supplied so-called separatists in the Donbas. Russian armed forces removed their insignia to attack Ukrainian forces. 24 February 2022 was not the start of the war, but the launch of a new phase — and a colossal failure for Russia.

The catastrophe named Carlson

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukraine is not a real country, and that it’s part of Russia. At the beginning of February, Tucker Carlson—not a journalist — wilfully reinforced Vladimir Putin’s narrative by giving him a platform to spread his ideas in the English-speaking world.

I do not want to contribute directly to Carlson’s career, so I will not include a link to his interview, but you can easily find it. It began with Putin condescending toward Carlson, which I can understand, followed immediately by a 35-minute lecture on history — a recap of 1,000 years of eastern Europe which established the idea that Ukraine was really only a part of Russia, and therefore Ukrainian culture did not exist as a separate entity, and from that, therefore, Ukraine’s sovereignty is illegitimate. 

Like all convincing lies, Putin’s narrative contains a lot of truth. But it leaves out a lot.

Carlson was not knowledgeable enough to challenge any of Putin’s interpretation of history, and he obviously had not prepared for this interview. 

The problem is that most people in the West, particularly Carlson’s audience, have little to no understanding of the history of Ukraine, or Russia. Certainly not what happened on the long rivers of eastern Europe a millennium ago. 

Let’s see where the spin came into this story.

Putin began his history of Russia with Prince Rurik, a Varangian or Viking, “invited” to rule Novgorod, a city in what is now western Russia. At the time, there was no such thing, not even an idea, of “Russia.” And Moscow did not exist.

Rurik’s realm became known as the Rus’, derived from the word for “rowers,” which is a good descriptor of Vikings. Rurik’s successors set up their capital at Kyiv on the Dnipro River, which became one of the largest and richest cities in early medieval Europe. 

Putin describes the Rus’ realm as “a unified state” with a single common language. It’s easy to disprove that. No credible historians today would describe Rus’ as a unified state; some dispute whether it was a state at all, in the modern understanding of the word. Kyivan Rus’ was never a unified state with a single language.

At any rate, Kyivan Rus’ eventually controlled much of what’s now European Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Lithuania. Over four centuries, a number of cities were founded as feudal sub-principalities—including Moscow in about 1156. Centuries after Kyiv.

None of this justifies killing of civilians every single day.

Kyiv was attacked several times in the 13th century by other Rus’ princes. But it was the 1240 siege siege by the Mongos under Batu Khan that ended the city’s prominence for several centuries. The Mongols destroyed almost every building and massacred 96 percent of the population. 

Putin did not mention that the Mongols also burned Moscow to the ground before the siege of Kyiv.

The cities of the Rus’ realm gradually recovered over centuries. But Rus’ was over. Putin said, with some justification, that Moscow grew into the most powerful eastern “Russian” state by the 17th century. But saying that Moscow somehow inherited all the lands of Rus’ as a natural outcome just makes no sense at all. In fact, by that logic, what is today Russia could as easily be considered belonging to Kyiv. And by his logic, Russia would have no claim to Siberia. But I digress.

After a skewed description of medieval history, Putin droned on about history with so many outright lies about Poland, Germany, Russia itself and Ukraine that there just isn’t room in this blog to refute them all. Just one thing: Putin added another nugget of truth by referring to the Treaty of Peryaslavl, when the Cossack state, or Hetmanate under Bogdan Khmelnetsky pledged allegiance to the Tsar of Moscow in the infamous. Again, there’s not enough room here to discuss the ins and outs of that. 

None of this justifies kidnapping of children.

Carlson asked whether Putin thought European countries should “go back to the borders of 1654.” It’s a ridiculous idea. It would require re-establishing the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Golden Horde in Crimea and on and on. To his credit, Putin demurred. But it shows how little Carlson knows about history, and how poorly he had prepared for this interview. 

Conclusion 

People in the West need to learn more about eastern European history so they do not fall for the lies of the caviar-tongued devil that is Vladimir Putin.  

And all nations need to do whatever is needed to drive Russian forces out of other countries, starting now with Ukraine.