The REAL History of Ukraine | Facts Ep. 11

So, what is the history of Ukraine? Is it an invention, as Vladimir Putin suggested, or is it reality, with its own distinctive national identity? What are the facts, you ask? You're about to find out.

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[Rentedalien]

As a Ukrainian, I can add a little context for foreigners. Russian propaganda claims that there has never been such a nation as Ukrainian, that there has never been such a language as Ukrainian, and that there has never been such a state as Ukraine before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I will try to briefly refute each of these points.

The first point is the Ukrainian people. The Ukrainian nation was formed, like most European nations, between the 13th century and the second half of the 18th century. There are references to Ukrainians and Ukraine on the maps of European travellers and cartographers from France and Italy, for example, Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan, whose map shows Ukraine as name of a land and Ukrainians as a people as early as the 17th century. To sum up, Ukrainians are not Russians. This is the same as saying that Poles and Slovaks are one people. That is stupidity. The last and simplest argument is that Ukrainians are not Russians. Just look at the strength with which we have been resisting these monsters for three years of war. This is because we know our history.

The second point is the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian is extremely different from Russian. The funny thing is that sometimes Russian propaganda contradicts itself. Sometimes they claim that there is no such language at all, that it was artificially invented, sometimes they claim that it is a dialect of Russian. None of these versions is true. The Ukrainian language is a separate East Slavic language with its own distinctive phonetic pronunciation, a huge amount of original vocabulary, and is not understandable to Russians. The first Ukrainian book work, the Aeneid or "Енеїда" by Ivan Kotliarevsky, written in the pure Ukrainian vernacular, was first partially published in 1798. Unfortunately, in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Ukrainian was banned by law from being used in books, education and communication in large cities. Instead, the Russian language was introduced into all institutions of society. This contributed to the linguistic Russification of a certain part of the Ukrainian people, mainly in the south and east of modern Ukraine. Now, after 300 years of Russification, beginning in the early 18th century, Putin is claiming that because people live on those lands who speak Russian, they, like their lands, belong to Russia. This is a distortion of the facts and an outright lie. Now, with this war, more and more Ukrainians are voluntarily switching to Ukrainian, which has led to the extintion of the russian language in Ukraine. We are finnaly restoring the Ukrainian cultural field, which is spreading every day of the war.

The third point is the Ukrainian state. Russians claim that Ukraine never existed. That it is an artificial state that was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. But this is also a lie. Our proto-state of the past - Kyivan Rus (9th-13th centuries) - is the beginning of our history. Then the Ukrainian lands were part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which united with Poland in 1569 to form the so-called Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (14th - 17th centuries). In this state, one third of the population were Ukrainians, who lived on the territories of modern central and western Ukraine. After that, during the Cossack Revolution (Cossacks are Ukrainians), our first state, the state of the Zaporizhzhya Army or in other word - Hetmanate, was created in these territories. It was a state of Cossacks, who were the military elite of the Ukrainian people, who fought for their right to independence. In the course of the war and political intrigues, this state was incorporated into the then Moscow Kingdom on the basis of autonomy. However, the Cossacks were betrayed, the autonomy was abolished within a few decades, and the Ukrainian people were literally imprisoned, deprived of their rights and freedoms, some of the unaffiliated Cossacks were killed, and others were forced to join the Russian army. This prison lasted for 2 centuries until the Russian Empire collapsed in the early 20th century. And Ukrainian nationalists took this moment as a chance to restore our Ukrainian state and proclaimed independence on 22 January 1918 - the Ukrainian National Republic. Three years later, this state was completely occupied by the Bolsheviks (Russians) and incorporated into the Soviet Union as a puppet republic. This second occupation lasted until 1991. And since 1991, we have been trying for the third time to build our own Ukrainian state, but as you can see, the Russians are still not satisfied. They are chauvinistic imperialists who want to capture us and restore either the Soviet Union 2.0 or the Russian Empire 2.0. But one thing we know for sure, if this does happen, it will mean a ban and death to everything Ukrainian and those who have fought for it, are fighting for it, or could potentially fight for it. We know this, we have already been through it twice.

Thank you for reading this long text to the end. I hope it was more or less clear.

[smithb]

The history before the dissolution of the USSR doesn't matter. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War and losing wars, whether hot or cold, has consequences. Putin conveniently ignored that part of history. Ukraine became a so-called break away republic after the dissolution and is now an internationally recognized soverign nation. We can debate on whether or not to support Ukraine, but we can't deny that Ukraine is a sovereign nation being invaded by another nation, which is illegal

[thanksmark]

As a Ukrainian, I appreciate you Ben for truthfully covering and shedding light on the history of my country.
WE ARE NOT THE SAME AS RUSSIA.

[zeehero]

Putin: "It all started when the dinosaurs went extinct, this caused a power vacuum in what would eventually become eastern europe, which would in millions of years, lead to the mass migration of the polish prehistoric duck."

[therealrvasinger]

Only Ben Shapiro speaks fast enough to cover Eastern European history in seven minutes!

[grit]

You might as well say Luxembourg and Belgium are part of France because it once belonged to Lotharingia

[istonik]

I think this is an important video, considering how many lies have been used against Ukraine in recent years

[Just_us]

ok, as a Ukrainian I want to correct mistakes in this video, please read these theses:
1. He said that most Ukrainians fought against Hitler, and there was also a small part of Ukrainians who fought for Hitler, but you ignored the fact that more than half a million Ukrainians fought for independence of Ukraine during the Second World War, they fought against the Soviet Army and against the Third Reich, and there were many times more such people than those who supported Hitler.
2. He said that some parts of Ukraine were not part of Kievan Rus (for example, Crimea), but you did not say that 90% of the territory of modern Russia was not part of it either! They simply occupied other people's lands and created their Empire in the Middle Ages

[jamesvioleen]

7:55 you forget to mention one crucial part about this. russia has its fleet in Crimea, which means a lot of russians and their families moved there. this goes to other eastern territories too. people who were “russified” for decades, and don’t know their history can’t vote for anything else but joining russia. remember this, everywhere were russia came at any point of time, they did what they do today, that is deport/wipe out the indigenous peoples and inhabit those territories with russians.

[phaidros]

Putin conveniently forget to mention the Mongolian Empire which was the biggest empire of the world... Based on logic that should be restored - by the Mongols.

[sociopad]

Unfortunately, Ben's version of history contains significant errors. The most critical omission is the failure to acknowledge the destruction of Crimea's native population, including Crimean Tatars, Karaims, and Krymchaks, at the hands of Russia. Under Ukrainian rule, these groups' rights were restored, but the Russian occupation has resulted in their suppression once again. This constitutes just one example of Russia's genocidal policies towards the native populations of many occupied territories over the past two centuries. These policies have led to the artificial russification of these regions, including Crimea.

[MrLaakmis]

Hey Ben

Long term viewer and Ukrainian here.

This is a VERY SHORT, but good overview for your viewers. It is really important to give american right the realistic view of what Ukraine is and not adhere to the bots on twitter and MJT.

A couple of things I would like to add:

1. Polith-Lithuanian Commonwealth, despite its name, was in reality a confederation of three states: Rus(Ukraine), Poland and Lithuania. And even before that in Lithuania ruthenian(old ukrainian) was used as the official language, so that can hardly be called occupation imho!

2. The Valuev's circular and the Emsk Decree not only banned the language per se, but also the use of it in any shape or form, such as bibles, musical notes, books, screen plays etc

3. Despite Crimea not being part of ethnic Ukrainian lands, never had it been Russia ethnical land ither - Crimea had always, until russification and Stalins deportations, been populated by mainly Crimean Tatars and other indigenous Crimean smaller nations.

Obviously it is not all, but I think those are some important points.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work!

[Kostyazolot]

Also important fact from the history, Bill Clinton as the acting president of the US at the time, initiates disarment of Ukraine's nuclear weapons, which at the time were 3rd largest in the world. Thus making Ukraine extremely vulnerable to it's agressive neighbour. This sad process was finalized in 1994 by signing Budapest agreement, where the US were promising "security assurances" for Ukraine. Later to be debated in linguistics that "assurances" are not "warranties".

[TheZealo]

"Give it all back to the Khan"
-Putin, accidentally.

[mul]

Benny, you forgot the 2014 coup. Also, Zelenskyy shutting down Russian radio and tv stations, arresting priests, and closing Orthodox churches.

[sydney_smith]

History of indigenous Crimean Tatar people would be nice to mention as well. Great episode btw.

[ylapitsky]

This is a good and short summary of the history of Ukraine. It's impossible to squeeze all important facts into several minutes. Several important facts that were not mentioned:
* in 1994 there was a treaty between Ukraine, Russia, US and others (Budapest memorandum). All the countries recognized the borders of Ukraine as of 1991 and guaranteed security for Ukraine in exchange for moving Ukrainian nuclear weapons to Russia (3rd nuclear potential in the world)
* In 1944 Stalin displaced the indigenous population of Crimea, Crimean Tatars. Since then a lot of people were moved to the peninsula from Russia and other Soviet republics
* The borders within USSR were changed several times. In some cases, Ukrainian cities like Taganrog were joined into Russia. Ukraine, however, does not have any claims for these areas

[kyleaerthe]

To put the point "Most Ukrainians fought against Hitler, small part fought for Hitler" into numbers :
About 6 million Ukrainians fought in Soviet Army, about 120 thousand in US, Canada and UK armies, about the same number in Poland's army and about 100k in Ukrainian Rebel Army. So it makes up to 6 and a half million against Hitler, with 3-4 million causalties in army (more than UK's and Canada's and France's armies causalties) and up to 5 million in civillian causalties. Meanwhile, around 200k fought for Vermacht. So more Ukrainians died fighting Hitler, than brits, americans and french all together

[danclark]

This is a very succinct summary of Ukraine's history that demonstrates the complexity of the region. Well done!

As a retired American soldier and student of warefare, there are also some other relevant pieces of history. Such as America helping to install and later overthrow the early presidents of Ukraine. Additionally, America has pushed for NATO membership for Baltic states that were former USSR members.

Finally don't forget that Ukraine was one of the original Baltic states that formed the core of the USSR.

Where I'm going with this is Ukraine is clearly within Russia's sphere of influence. It is also clearly of strategic importance to keep Ukraine aligned with and allies of Russia.

America, on the other hand has no strategic ties to or interest in Ukraine. We are not the world's police force. Despite the tragedy and human cost of war in the region, we have no business using the Ukrainian people to fight a proxy war for us.

The fact that America and Great Britain blew up a peace deal in order to use Ukraine to inict as much damage as possible to Russia is reprehensible. We are the direct cause of millions of deaths. We also spent $500 billion in aid and weaponry. Money that went directly to our national debt.

Whether or not the people of this area have a right to fight for a free and separate country is their matter. Whether Russia wanted to oppose that was their decision. NATO and the USA had no business involving themselves in an internal matter in the Baltic region.

[annakoch]

It’s a great video but some critical things are missed. For example, Crimean pro-russian support is caused by russia’s ethnic cleansing of local population, Crimean Tatars in 1944, the process russia continues till today. russia executed on its centuries old policy and replaced local population by russians. Till this day Crimea Tatars fully support Ukraine.