Historical background of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Ukrainians and Russians have a long history of interactions and mutual influences, which is often used to explain and also to justify the Russo-Ukrainian War.

The legacy of the Kyivan Rus'
Ukrainians and Russians both see the Kyivan Rus' (Russian: Kievan Rus') as the place where the history of their nations, states, and Orthodox churches originated. Starting in the 12th century, the Kyivan Rus' disintegrated into several centres of power, the most important of which were Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east and Galicia–Volhynia in the south-west.

According to the Russian national narrative, the Russian state was founded in Kiev (Kyiv), then - in the 13th century - its centre was transferred to the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal and soon afterwards to Moscow. This narrative of a common history of state, people and church spanning more than 1000 years is still prevalent in Russia today. It includes the notion that Ukrainians are a part of the Russian people, having no history of their own. Until very recently, Western historiography mostly followed the Russian narrative, using terms like Old Russia or Kievan Russia instead of Kyivan Rus' and turning a blind eye to the existence of Ukrainians and their history.

On the other hand, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the founder of modern Ukrainian historiography, claimed the legacy of the Rus' exclusively for Ukraine, arguing in an essay published 1904 that the true successor state of the Rus' was not Vladimir-Suzdal, but Galicia–Volhynia which passed on the legacy to Poland and Lithuania. Hrushevsky compared the relationship between the Kievan and Muscovite states to the relationship between Rome and its Gallic provinces.

On the occasion of the milennial of the death of prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev (as the Russians call him) or Volodymyr the Great of Kyiv (as the Ukrainians call him) in 2015, the presidents of Russia and of Ukraine both claimed the legacy of the Kyivan Rus' exclusively for their own people. Vladimir Putin said that Vladimir "cleared the way for the establishment of a strong, centralized Russian state", while his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko quoted Hrushevsky's formula of the "Kyivan Rus-Ukraine".

From an academic point of view, this dispute is unproductive because national categories cannot be applied to the Middle Ages, and there were neither Russians nor Ukrainians.

Mongol and Polish rule
After the Mongol invasion, those parts of Rus' that would later become Ukraine came under the control of Lithuania and Poland, while the north-east around the emerging centre of Moscow was under Mongol control. Historian Serhii Plokhy agrees that Russian religion, written language and arts, system of laws and ruling dynasty originated in Kyiv. He points out however that linking Russian ethnicity, spoken language and culture to those of Kyiv is "problematic". Both the princes of Lithuania and of Muscovy claimed to be Princes of all Rus'. The legal and bureaucratic traditions of the Kievan Rus' were inherited by Lithuania, but not by Muscovy, where a new legal system centered on a very powerful tsar was being developed.

Pereiaslav Agreement
Russian historian Nikolay Ustryalov (1805 – 1870) created the myth that the 1654 Pereiaslav Agreement meant the "reunification" of the "Little Russian" and "Great Russian" people.

Soviet Ukraine
The politics of Joseph Stalin's government brought about a catastrophic famine in 1932–33. Estimates range from 6 to 7 million dead, among them about 3.5 million Ukrainians and 1.5 million Kazakhs. There is an ongoing debate as to whether the famine—called Holodomor in Ukraine—can be labelled as a genocide.

Independent Ukraine
The 2011–2013 Russian protests which were sparked by election fraud in a similar way as Ukraine's Orange Revolution, increased Russian president Vladimir Putin's fear of being deposed by a colour revolution.