<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://api.kyivindependent.com/storage/2022/02/13-16.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-8648"/><figcaption>British paratroopers with the 16th Air Assault Brigade walk though a field following a airdrop during the Joint Endeavor exercises in Ukraine on Sept. 22, 2020. (ArmyInform)</figcaption></figure>



Last July, Vladimir Putin supplied the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181">mythical basis</a>&nbsp;for Russian war propaganda in an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” The essential idea is that Russia has the right to Ukraine because of things that happened a thousand years ago in Kyiv. At the time, the city was a trading hub of Viking slavers who were gaining dominance over local Khazars. It takes some fanciful thinking to see here a reason for Russia to invade Ukraine in the 21st century, as it seems prepared to do. The absurd particulars, though, are less important than the principle. If countries can claim other countries on the grounds of millennial myths, the modern state system ceases to exist.



Continue reading on&nbsp;<meta charset="utf-8"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/28/putin-russia-ukraine-myths/?s=04&amp;fbclid=IwAR3PZWCLSVfslWBV_IpCkm_6yPUe-mMfC-vCT5YFy_beqQxwiU5-_LzJmo8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Washington Post.</a>



Editor’s Note: This op-ed was published by&nbsp;<a href="https://thehub.ca/2022-01-26/abandoning-ukraine-means-surrendering-the-liberal-rules-based-world-order/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/28/putin-russia-ukraine-myths/?s=04&amp;fbclid=IwAR3PZWCLSVfslWBV_IpCkm_6yPUe-mMfC-vCT5YFy_beqQxwiU5-_LzJmo8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The Washington Post. </a>The Kyiv Independent is aggregating it as a recommendation to our readers.

Last July, Vladimir Putin supplied the&nbsp;mythical basis&nbsp;for Russian war propaganda in an essay titled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” The essential idea is that Russia...

Timothy Snyder: Putin’s case for invading Ukraine rests on phony grievances and ancient myths

Timothy Snyder is an American author and historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

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Timothy Snyder