Talk:On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians

Broken References
Please look at the refences. All of them are broken. Mandorakatiki (talk) 13:17, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Questionable use of source
Deleted, but copied here for discussion:

"The essay denies the existence of Ukraine as an independent nation. "

The Asia Times article quotes a few words in a row from a translation of a speech by Putin (not from the actual essay), as "the collapse of historical Russia", implying that this means Putin was denying Ukrainian sovereignty. The article goes on to link an article about Putin's expressed wishes, at The New Republic, which flatly states (but does not support with direct quotes),

He’s already made it clear that he believes what Ukraine came in with boils down to nothing at all. Eastern Ukraine, Putin claims, is basically Russia. Southern Ukraine is basically Russia. Transcarpathia is basically Russia. Kyiv is essentially Russia."

In fact, Putin is careful to qualify his terms -- "historical Russia," "modern Ukraine", while delving into his views on what Ukraine should legally be, which can be yet another thing again. He never says that Kyiv is "essentially Russia." If Kyiv happened to be the birthplace of a some hypothetical Russian ethnic identity, that doesn't ipso facto make it part of today's Russia under today's sovereignty norms or the legal systems of the USSR prior to breakup.

The actual Unity essay includes Putin saying "I would like to emphasize again that Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us," which sounds an awful lot like recognizing Ukraine as a country. He does speak of Ukraine having been "severed" from "historical Russia," but his complaint seems to be that the Bolsheviks didn't do this in a democratic way, consulting the Ukrainian people as well as the Russian people.

"I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution, and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia -- by separating, severing what is historically Russian land. Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought."

The point of discussion here should not be to debate various points about that speech, such as how inflated, disingenuous, hypocritical or outright mendacious it may be. It's whether the above sources (Asia Times, the speech itself) can be used to support the claim that Putin has said Ukraine has no right to exist as an independent nation.

I'd like to comply with WP:EDIT's "Preserve the value that others add, even if they "did it wrong" (try to fix it rather than remove it)," but in this case, because I still haven't found a reliable source (WP:RS) to verify (WP:V) Putin's supposed belief that Ukraine has no right to exist in any form, I opted to copy here for discussion. I'd make it "It is widely claimed that Putin said ..." but so far I haven't seen a reliable source that measures and discusses the proliferation of this claim.

Yakushima (talk) 03:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)


 * There are plenty to choose from. —Michael Z. 16:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Polemics are Unsuitable for Wikipedia
This article gives no fair representation of what Putin wrote in the essay at issue. The article only recites generalized criticism, some just name calling. If a balanced view can't be presented, then an unbalanced view should not be presented. DrWJKwjk DrWJK (talk) 23:26, 2 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Please take a look at WP:NPOV. WP neutrally represents what reliable sources say. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:43, 3 March 2024 (UTC)