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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

Because of the war against Ukraine, I’ve become more aware of Ukraine’s role in the USSR when reading up on history. One thing I’ve noticed is just how much of the most impressive technological feats came from Ukraine.

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For me, the surprising part was learning how many Russian people I know have parents or grandparents who were born in Ukraine.

I knew that Soviet Ukraine had ~50 million people. Almost 20% of the USSR, and a bit less than France, Italy, or the UK at the time. I knew that Ukraine was one of the most developed and densely populated parts of the USSR, and of the Russian Empire before that. I had some idea how the borders had moved over time, and how the cultural boundaries were ambiguous as a consequence. I just had not realized how often that ambiguity would show at individual level.

Interesting - I never attributed that to moving borders. USSR had a pretty mixed society with many people moving between different republics during their lifetime (especially in the 40-60s). Don’t think borders changed much during that period.

Go back a little more in time and the borders, both geographically and culturally, are very push and pull between Moscow and Kiev.

It's not just about borders. Ukraine has some Russian Empire's/USSR's most fertile land. It was facing serious overpopulation (i.e. peasants with no land to work on) in the end of the 19th century, while Russia had a lot of unpopulated land in Siberia and the Far East, facing imperial Japan and potentially China.

Ukrainian peasants were offered free land and transport if they moved east in an attempt to solve these two problems, and many used the opportunity.

I wonder if such a solution could have been used for the Donbas: offer space in Russia to those opposed to Kiev rule.

Russia needs people, after all.

At the individual level, the boundaries are really blurry. I'm a Russian. I know many Ukrainians. Often, when you meet a Ukrainian, you'll never know that they are, in fact, from Ukraine, unless you ask. Sometimes their pronunciation ("г" as "h" instead of "g") would give them away, but other than that, there are practically zero differences — especially cultural ones.

We really are mostly the same people and we should really be friends. Everyone would benefit from that. It's a shame that the ambitions of one person are splitting us apart like that.

History is full of similar peoples fighting wars. But it's not just one person either, the Brat movies don't exist in a vacuum, do they? Voldemort is enabled by a base and a system.

Amen.

You seen Gagarin meme from early war?

Where he call from the past and ask who is the foe that Russia and Ukraine are fighting against; together?

As a Ukrainian living abroad for 12 years it’s the opposite for me.

It’s easy to spot russian person: visually, by russian accent, by English accent, by the way of carrying themselves and so on.

There were always tons of different queues: not 100% accurate, but many good heuristics.

Both can be true; Russia is a big place that's sort of an amalgam itself.

Parent comment is mostly true to russian people.

They assume if the other people know russian language and understand their culture it means everything else is the same. But lots of nations in that region in addition to understanding russian language and culture have their own.

A and that is why it can never be said that we are the same people.

At a minimum such statements and observations come as the result of ignorance - there are not many russian people that I know that would come and visit Ukrainian museums or ask for a tour or ask a question about Ukrainian history.

If you have settled world view and don’t try to learn of course you will not see counterexamples of what you believe in IRL and you would just write decades old cliches like “we are the same people”

I can't fault you for taking it as hostility and ignorance, considering the present circumstances, but it doesn't have to be that way.

The United States is a nation of nations, and while the same ignorance of local history is broadly true, there can be brotherhood despite that. I'll admit, though, that the US is showing some fraying of those bonds.

“brotherhood” seems like a fancy word used in propaganda. It’s too high level and too abstract.

You don’t start with “brotherhood”.

A you start with respect. Respecting your neighbor. Respecting people practicing some different religion, or having different sexual orientation, or speaking different language, or practicing different traditions.

“brotherhood” is about recognizing that we are all human despite all the differences in the ways we live.

First do that. And that is fundamental difference between the US and russia.

Spot on!

Is there any good source on the topic of "г" pronounced as "h" instead of "g"? I've studied Russian as a second language and once got into an argument over whether Russian has the equivalent of "h" because "x" is pronounced as "kh", which is harder than "h". Does this phenomenon have some name, as googling didn't turn out much?

You're looking for fricative /ɣ/ in southern dialect. Relevant links:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D1%8D%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Russian_dialects

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%87...

It's hard to describe in writing, but I'll try. There's no "h" sound, like the one where you just exhale, neither in Russian nor Ukrainian. The Russian "г" is hard, like "g" in "get". The Ukrainian equivalent to that is "ґ", but their "г" is something in between, closer to "kh". The fact that many English-language reports about the war do transliterate "г" as "h" in Ukrainian toponyms doesn't help, but it's as close as one could reasonably get to the real Ukrainian pronunciation.

There's so much no such sound that I've seen Hebrew and Arabic transcribed into Russian with the character "h" for that sound.

> Does this phenomenon have some name, as googling didn't turn out much?

Certainly not a formal one. Хэканье? Or maybe simply украинский акцент?

The Ukrainian г is a voiced glottal fricative, IPA /ɦ/. This is as the English /h/ sound but voiced. Southern Russian dialects use /ɣ/, a voiced velar fricative, which is pronounced like /ɦ/ but further forward in the throat. East Slavic dialects turn Proto-Slavic /ɡ/ more into /ɦ/ the further south you go.

Belarusian also uses /ɣ/.

It should be noted that even in Russian, /ɣ/ used to be the more common pronunciation throughout the Empire until the end of the 19th century or so, due to the influence of Church Slavonic (in which it is also /ɣ/). And it's still preserved in modern standard Russian in some words, such as бог (god) - /boɣ/.

I disagree with you. Ukranian and Russians are not the same people. It is this type of thinking that Ukranian people are same is what got us in today's soup. And it's a shame of not one person's ambition but of Russian ideology in general and years of acceptance of it. Putin is a reflection of the society not the other way round. So, stop deflecting blame and accept responsibility.

If Ukranians cannot be Russians then all Russians are Ukranians. It's as simple as that to me. But I accept now that people have the freedom to choose whatever nationality they want to be, even if it appears irrational. Similarly restrictive though, nobody is allowed to be Russian in Ukraine now and since this whole mess began.

W/a the Polish? Warsaw used to be part of your empire.

Or the lucky bastards are in NATO already, out of your reach?

I've already stated that in my opinion everyone can chose their own nationality, I don't get why your response is contrary in conclusion to what I just had written.

> We really are mostly the same people

Heh, it's kinda stereotypical that a Russian citizen wouldn't notice the difference between themselves and Ukrainians.

From my perspective as a foreign observer, the average Russian tends to be much more badly behaved than a Ukrainian. When I hear someone speaking Russian being very loud and obnoxious, violent, lacking manners, showing little empathy and lots of entitlement, 9/10 (I'd say always but maybe I'm forgetting something) it's a Russian citizen, not a Ukrainian.

I'm speaking as a Russian ethnic who's not a Russian citizen.

My mother is Russian. My father is Ukrainian. I never saw any difference between those cultures other than Ukrainian language being a funny version of Russian. I never had any issue communicating with Ukrainian people and then didn't have issues understanding me either.

I don't believe there's ANY difference between Russians and Ukrainians. To me it's the one nation and that's about it. Ukrainian-Russian war is a civil war fueled by the West, it's not the first civil war in this world and won't be the last I guess.

I am Ukranian and I am strongly disagree with you. First of all don't call Ukranian language funny version of Russian. Second "civil war" - is the war between citizen in the same country. Now answer on 2 questions: - who crossed the border of independed country? - where is the war going on?

Yes, there are of course a lot of similarities between Ukranians and people in Russia, as there are between Ukranian and Polish people or between Polish people and people in Check Republic.

It's not very relevant to tell people of Ukraine what they should be thinking or identifying as. Even the very first narodniks of the Russian Empire realized the big cultural differences between Ukrainians and Russians. Estonians and Finns are very similar in ways regarding culture and language, yet distinctly different as well. You wouldn't deny Estonia's existence and relegate it to some mistake made by Trotsky in 1918 when he failed to conquer the nation.

Could you elaborate on the big cultural differences please you seem to be proficient on this topic

Ukrainians speak Ukrainian, Russians speak Russian. It's true that due to being bilingual, Ukrainians can consume Russian content, but saying they have the same culture is kinda like saying Austrians and Germans have the same culture because they speak the same language.

Interestingly enough, historically, Russia's culture was "Ukrainianized" around the 17th and 18th century, being heavily influenced by Kyiv's culture (influences can be seen if you look at the history of painting, music, architecture). But that's another topic.

I'm going to argue with you because I'd say culture is a very abstract and complex thing and is not, lets say, as simple as culture in a civ game.

Looking at your example.. a German can go to Austria and will understand 95% of the language spoken and probably 99% in Wien. Sometimes there are different languages within a country like in Switzerland, is Switzerland now culturally divided or one culture even though they speak four to five languages there? Also one would get regional differences of the same language like dialects, and it might even go down to the lowest common multiple like words that only you and your friends/family use.

Next: Many Ukranians do speak Russian and some Russians speak Ukranian. If you use language as the canon for culture definition then yes, Germans and Austrians share the same culture because both speak German.

I never heard that Russia's culture was Ukranianized. After the moscowians kicked the Mongols out of the region around the 14th century Moscow became the center of power. I would be happy if you could cite me some source of this.

Well, I can keep going. One possible definition of culture is "stories that we have in common". Ukraine has its own literature (in the Ukrainian language, but not only), its own music, its own religious cult (Kyivan Patriarchate, rather than Moscovian), a very different political model, different personalities, different role-models.

> If you use language as the canon for culture definition

I'm not, I was simply dispelling from the start the idea that speaking the same language means having the same culture. By that rationale we could say that USA, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Malta and India have the same culture, which would be ridiculous.

> I never heard that Russia's culture was Ukranianized... I would be happy if you could cite me some source of this.

So glad you asked. I'll provide two sources (well, one and a half) that can't be suspected to have any bias against Russia, and after that I'll let you do your own research.

One is Nikolai Trubetzkoy, who once wrote: "Таким образом, старая великорусская, московская культура при Петре умерла; та культура, которая со времен Петра живет и развивается в России, является органическим и непосредственным продолжением не московской, а киевской, украинской культуры." - http://www.hai-nyzhnyk.in.ua/doc2/1928.trubeckoi.php

The second one, I'm sure you'll recognize for yourself. "Киев - мать городов русских" - https://news.obozrevatel.com/politics/49831-putin-nazval-kie... .

> After the moscowians kicked the Mongols out of the region around the 14th century

Haha. You're oversimplifying to make it look like a rosy battle for independence, when in fact Moscow simply enhanced its power by opportunistically backstabbing its neighbours and being the main collaborators of the Mongols. As an example, Moscow was an ALLY of the mongols when putting down the Tver rebellion. That is how Moscow managed to increase its power and become the dominant force in the area; in modern terms - by being a collaborator with the occupant. Sorry, I guess they forgot to mention this in school.

Edit: perhaps this is something they teach you in school - around the time of Peter the Great, a series of reforms were introduced to Westernize Russia, and many people refused to comply because they believed it to be against the cultural and religious norms by which they and their ancestors lived. This clash led to persecutions and an exodus, with many people fleeing Russia in all directions. Descendants of those people (Old Believers, but not only) still live, to this day. So in a sense, the Old Russian culture, the authentic one, only lives in a few places around the world outside of Russia, whereas the current so-called Russian culture in fact originates from the West and Ukraine. Вот это поворот!

https://xkcd.com/386/

> Well, I can keep going. One possible definition of culture is "stories that we have in common". Ukraine has its own literature (in the Ukrainian language, but not only), its own music, its own religious cult (Kyivan Patriarchate, rather than Moscovian), a very different political model, different personalities, different role-models.

I recall you saying there were "big" cultural differences and this is what I disagree on from personal experience.

> So glad you asked. I'll provide two sources (well, one and a half) that can't be suspected to have any bias against Russia, and after that I'll let you do your own research.

Both sources you sent are Ukranian sites... I was hoping for some serious book or wikipedia where we could have a neutral look at it. I'm sorry but your claims are silly and I no longer regard you as proficient in this topic.

> Haha. You're oversimplifying to make it look like a rosy battle for independence, when in fact Moscow simply enhanced its power by opportunistically backstabbing its neighbours and being the main collaborators of the Mongols. As an example, Moscow was an ALLY of the mongols when putting down the Tver rebellion. That is how Moscow managed to increase its power and become the dominant force in the area; in modern terms - by being a collaborator with the occupant. Sorry, I guess they forgot to mention this in school.

I got it from here: https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/russia-the-kievan-rus-and... yes Moscow was an ally of the Mongols but they later kicked them out, it doesn't change what I initially wrote.

Something general to mention.. People from the 14th century and from Peter the Great are long dead. It's the people that live today that make up a nation. It's more about to which culture you want to belong to, not so much about where you have been born or which language you speak.

EDIT: Having rewatched the crashcourse video I can now mention that because of the Mongols many Rus (this is how the people called themselves living in the Kievian Rus) moved to Moscow. So while we could agree that Ukraine influenced Russia back then, it would be wrong, because neither did Ukraine or Russia exist at that time, only the slavic Rus, one people.

> I recall you saying there were "big" cultural differences

I didn't, it was someone else who made the claim, but as far as I can tell it's true. It's also true that there are great similarities, but at the end of the day the two countries are different, and have been for a long time.

An Englishman could say "I don't see big cultural differences between us and the Scots or the Irish, we're the same people", but that would be very ignorant. Just like Ukraine and Russia, simply because they share some cultural elements, doesn't mean they're the same people, the same country or have the same culture or history. In fact, the deeper you dive, the more differences you find.

But I can see that when you're not looking, it may appear that the differences are minor. I can't speak to your personal experience, but from my point of view (I'm not a citizen of Ukraine or Russia; in fact I'm a Russian ethnic), there are significant differences between the two populations, not just culturally.

> Both sources you sent are Ukranian sites...

Really? Confirmation was literally a Google search away. I put in the effort to find the sources and you couldn't confirm them?

Confirmation of source #1, from a non-Ukrainian website. For context, since you couldn't be bothered to look it up, Nikolai Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian who founded morphophonology. The passage I quoted is reproduced in this book (but I'm pretty sure you can find it in German books too, if you're curious):

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qcE2CwAAQBAJ

Confirmation of source #2, in live video from kremlin.ru at 36:30. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603

> I got it from here: https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/russia-the-kievan-rus-and...

Hmm, sounds like an extremely lossy compression. Using this type of hand-wavy abstraction of details we can indeed conclude that not only are Russians and Ukrainians the same but also Belorussians, Latvians and Moldavians.

> It's more about to which culture you want to belong to, not so much about where you have been born or which language you speak.

Most people don't actively seek to make this choice, they simply live their lives and belong to a culture or another, so this is a bit of a red herring.

> It's the people that live today that make up a nation.

Couldn't agree more. That said, it's been 30 years since USSR collapsed, 30 years of free Ukraine. Even assuming that in USSR, Russia and Ukraine were the same country and people (reductio ad absurdum), in these last 30 years Ukraine had its own parallel history to Russia's, and are a different country with a different culture. You'd be hard-pressed to find Russians who know the name of the Ukrainian president that preceded Zelensky. Or Russians who can tell you anything about the history of Ukraine. "Same people"? I think not.

We're quickly headed to the point where there'll be fewer Ukrainians who remember living in USSR than Ukrainians who don't. As time goes on, this cultural link that was created in USSR is weakening more and more, up to the point where it will remain in some nostalgic minds of old people.

But you'll also find many old Ukrainians who are less nostalgic about USSR, and will be quick to point out that for them, USSR (well, Russia) was always the oppressor.

> I don't believe there's ANY difference between Russians and Ukrainians

Russians are slaves sent to fight a war in another country. Ukrainians are free people who want to stay free. It has been like this for hundreds of years, ever since Muscovy started expanding like a cancer.

I'll give you a spoiler - Ukraine will NEVER AGAIN be a part of the Muscovyan empire. Enjoy living with that thought.

The cultures are close enough that when people move, the second generation is often completely assimilated culturally even if they remember the origin of their parents.

Think of it as England and Ireland. The Wikipedia category [0] is massive, but there's a difference between how the Irish and the English view their two nations. A modal Englishman could say, "the English, the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish built the British Empire together, we should all be proud of what we did", but a modal Irishman would reply, "no, thanks, we didn't need your empire and we don't need your patronizing fraternization". The fact that both of them have a grandparent from Derry and a grandparent from Norfolk wouldn't matter at all.

Ukraine is currently undergoing the same kind of national divorce. Ukrainian roots don't matter, what matters is that one supports the idea of Ukraine being a distinct nation with its own way.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_people_of_Iri...

Some of the most visually "Russian" videogames are Ukrainian. S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Metro 2033,Cossacks...

Especially STALKER, given its fanbase. It's a bit soul draining to think that people who played this game are now fighting each other, probably using things they learned from it.

Have you heard of the Address Programming Language?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsLlYY50zec (English subtitles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgFR_tK0iA

Care to highlight interesting examples and industries for us unlearned?

Most high end Soviet Nuclear weapons were designed by KB Yuzhnoye and built by Yuzhmash in Dnepr(Dnepropetrovsk).

As well as rocket engines like RD-8.

I just wanted to ask Google to find a more comprehensive list, but I was reminded of a serious search issue that I would like to see addressed at some point:

Especially whenever there is a current event with lots of news it is nearly impossible to find anything that is too close to the subject.

It would be great to be able to restrict search to older results, to avoid being in the shadow of more recent articles. Even adding "USSR" did not help at all, almost everything I got was related to recent events.

I've had this problem sooo many times in the past already. Google is way too focused on the latest information. Just yesterday somebody also pointed this out in a comment, about that website link that made it to the HN homepage that help find the right glue for two different materials, which was an example for an old rarely changing but still relevant website.

Anyway, on topic, here's a list that I found starting out from trying to widen the search from the starting point that I knew Antonov is Ukrainian:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_design_bureaus_in_Ukra...

https://www.value.today/headquarters/ukraine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Ukraine

"Donbas: What’s Ukraine Losing—Industrial Hub, Breadbasket or Both?" -- https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/donbas-whats-ukraine-losi...

Here is a video showing a pretty cool - albeit pretty unreliable, according to what I read - 1960s motorbike that was made in Ukraine: https://youtu.be/DvxcK645HF0 -- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr_(motorcycle). Dnepr (Ukrainian: Дніпро) is a motorcycle brand produced in Kyiv. I became interested in this bike while reading this RR story from a Ukrainian author - with lots of brilliant author-made painting-illustratiuons (if you open the inline images in a new tab you will find they are a much bigger resolution; It's worth scrolling through the chapters even without reading anything, just for those pictures): https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/54085/the-armorer-and-the-...

A lot of rocket/spaceship control systems and related components were designed and produced in Electrophibor in Kharkiv, East Ukraine.

Yangel OKB, designers of the frankly speaking ridiculously overpowered R-36 ICBM series was in Ukraine (including work for turning R-36 into Tsyklon and Dnepr satellite launchers), as well as teams responsible for Zenit carrier rocket (also used as boosters on Energia).

There was also other R&D and manufacturing works scattered across Ukraine, but outside of those and already mentioned Antonov they were mostly related to areas that weren't my hobby so I can't recite them from memory. Lots of heavy industry related to tanks and related vehicles near Kharkiv, at least.

EDIT: Also, post USSR breakup Ukraine ended up having to run a nuclear "weapons" program despite disavowing nuclear weapons - because they had full chain nuclear weapons industry from raw materials to final warhead assembly, and it was considered good idea to keep those people employed lest they be hired out by more militant places.

The sole Russian Carrier today was built and docked in Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed Russia stole and basically destroyed it out of sheer incompetence.

> The sole Russian Carrier today was built and docked in Ukraine. When the USSR collapsed Russia stole and basically destroyed it out of sheer incompetence.

That's strictly due to geography. There are not too many places in USSR where one can build decently sized wharfs.

Indeed geography has a well-recorded way of shaping civilizations, cultures, and their competencies.

Are you referring to Jared Diamond?

My understanding is that he overstepped his boundary as a scientist here and lack recognition for that particular theory.

But I’m a random guy; I might be off base myself

True, but even if Ukraine had retained the Admiral Kuznetsov they wouldn't have been able to afford to operate it. They don't have the infrastructure or escort vessels that would have been needed. So, if they had kept the ship it would be rusting at the dock or broken up for scrap (which would be better for everyone).

Yeah I learned that the Russians constantly harassed Ukraine for hundreds of years.

It's a bit more than that - the Russian part of civilisation came _from_ Ukraine. Kiev is much older than Moscow, and that's not something Rashists can forgive.

That's quite a one-sided viewpoint. Kievan Rus was founded by Rurikids who were Scandinavians originally based in Novgorod (now Russia). According to the Nestor's chronicle, Kiev basically became the capital after Oleg of Novgorod (a Rurikid) killed local princes Askold and Dir. Age of Kiev has nothing to do with it. 1000 years ago there was no "civilized Ukrainians vs non-civilized Russians" argument, it was just a bunch of equally civilized East Slavic tribes conquered by Norsemen. Novgorod's birch bark documents and other artifacts show that Novgorod was influenced by Scandinavia more than it was by Kiev. There are several times more references to Novgorod in Scandinavian sagas than there are to Kiev. Novgorod also participated in the Hanseatic league. It was more complex and multi-faceted than what you describe.

Novgorod was conquered by Moscow a couple hundred of years before Kiev. Yes it's now considered to be an integral part of Russia but I historically it's not really more of a predecessor of the modern Russian state than Kievan Rus is, it's just another East Slavic/Rus subjugated (quite brutally) by the Muscovite empire.

>"Novgorod was conquered by Moscow"

Every territory got conquered at some point. Most "Quite Brutally". This is how current countries were born.

Perhaps, but I was replying to the comment above... Modern Russia is clearly a successor state to the Grand Duchy of Moscow so I don't really see how can it have a bigger claim to the history of Novgorod than to that of Kiev/other ancient city states in the current territory of Ukraine.

All the duchies into which Kievan Rus disintegrated were ruled by houses tracing their descent from Rurik. Thus, any one of them could try to "reclaim the ancestral lands" by the standards of that time. Of course, there was a little hitch there since the lands would need "gathering" first...

Moscow ending up the one who actually pulled it off is kinda ironic, though, given that it was very much an upstart that wasn't even there when Kievan Rus was still a polity united under a single ruler. Goes to show just how effective collaborationism (in this case, with the Mongols) can be to build a power base.

> don't really see how can it have a bigger claim to the history of Novgorod

Maybe not bigger, but the people of Novgorod now live in Russia and believe they are Russians. What's with that state-centric view? Ukrainians are Ukrainians despite multiple occupations, but if Novgorodian people believe they are Russians it's illegitimate and they lose all the claims, and are now relegated to have their claims go through Kiev->Moscow. Only "pure" identities with existing independent states can have claims?

This "Ukraine is the true Rus, and Russians are some splinter northern Finno-Ugric goblins" nationalist narrative is just tiresome and incoherent. It's pretty obvious that both sides have about the same level of claim.

> Novgorod now live in Russia and believe they are Russians

Obviously. However their relation to the Novgorodian republic is about as strong as that of modern Italians to the Roman Republic. Also I think any such claims are absurd and absolutely irrelevant (imho this applies to Kiev/Novgorod and to Moscow).

> This "Ukraine is the true Rus.. nationalist narrative is just tiresome and incoherent

Sure, you're right. However this narrative seems to be mostly a response to Russian claims that Ukraine is not a nation and that it should not exist.

> Russians are some splinter northern Finno-Ugric goblins

Nah... Politically and somewhat culturally they are probably closer to the Mongols (I'm actually half serious, the authoritarian and imperialist tendencies ingrained in Russian culture were probably inherited from the Golden Horde rather than Kiev/Novgorod.)

It’s not true. Modern Ukraine was created not hundreds of years, but just in ~1920. Google a bit more)

Commenter didn’t say anything about “modern Ukraine”. Russia has been harassing Ukraine for a very long time, modern or ancient.

In that case 'Russia' was harrassing itself: the regime first established in Kiev in late X century has conquered the northern territories and spread its rule there, then lost core southern territory in the aftermath of the mongol invasions, and eventually came back, also spreading as far as to Alaska in the east.

We have to agree that either “modern Ukraine” was created in 1920s from Russians and Russian territories or there were different people on that land long before that.

If you are leaning towards the former then this could be extended even further: Soviet Union only ever harassed itself. There were no occupied Baltic states, there was no Ukraine, etc etc - just one big happy family called USSR.

> We have to agree...

No, you just constructed a false dichotomy.

Russian Empire and its successor states USSR and Russia is a product of imperialism that was born in Kiev when Grand Prince Vladimir has brought Orthodox Christianity to those lands. This imperialism conquered some territories, lost some territories (Kiev proper), then regained them back and conquered a lot more, then splintered. The current war is the result of the imperialist successor of the original Kiev regime to gain Kiev back.

It’s a false dichotomy only if you indeed believe that Russia has “created” Ukraine and that Ukrainians are not a real nation. Russia has as much right to claim Ukraine as Ukraine - Russia. None.

OP is claiming something much weirder - that Ukraine has "created" Russia.

There are some people, including some modern Ukrainians, who claim that Ukraine is a continuation state of people who had always lived in that area and have founded Kiev (I assume that it wat this 'ancient Ukraine' you were referring to here [0]). In that case, yes, 'Ukraine' was 'harassed' by itself, as Russia is nothing else, but a state created by this 'ancient Ukraine'.

If you hold another opinion - that Ukrainians are mixed descendants of people who came to live in this area in ~15 century after it was devastated by Mongol invasions and later steppe nomads plundering in 13..14 centuries, then no, Russia could not have harassed it in 'ancient' times.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33948877

Unfortunately, yes, you’re right. It’s not real nation. It’s just south dialect.

I beg to differ. Ukraine was a divided country born in 1991 with two very different parts - east and west who didn't quite get along since then. But thanks to Putin's aggression, after 2014, and especially now, it is a one nation firmly united and resolved to not be a part of Russia. So Ukraine is a very real nation now, created paradoxically, by none other then Putin. This guy is a great reconciliator: he healed the east-west divide in the Ukraine, expanded NATO, and even united all of the EU, Great Britain, Switzerland and other nations.

Well if you go back that far you should blame the Swedes who established the first centralized(ish) Rus state in Novgorod (not Kiev...). So the current war is in fact the result of the imperialist ambitions of successors of the Swedish Vikings from the 9th century.

No. Novgorod was established first (since it's closer to Sweden..). Not that the Novgorodian republic is in any way closer to being a predecessor of the modern Russian state than Kiev is.

And "modern" Russia was created in 1991...

By the way, Ukrainians should be grateful to the Soviet authorities for the Ukrainization of their territory in the 1930s. Just google it)

The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide. The 90th anniversary of the Holodomor was just two weeks ago.

I've to step in here, because also native Russians starved during the Holodomor. My grandmother saw half-starved people and corpses as a child in the city

Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.

> Just to clarify - native Russians in Ukraine or outside of it? If the former then it’s not surprising, the genocide was directed at specific territories.

Outside. Specifically, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, Urals and Siberia

This Wiki article describes it in details

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1930%E2%80%93...

I don't think "genocide" is the right term here. It is part of a wider man-made famine, which is an act of great evil perpetrated by the communist regime, but it affected all parts of the southern USSR, including areas with mainly ethnic Russian populations. For more information, you may want to read more about the policies that led to this event, such as "dekulakization"

I am aware that genocide is a disputed term in this context. I lean towards it because the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians (and Kazakhs) and was at least in part not mitigated intentionally to punish minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment.

> I am aware

Yet you use it.

> I lean towards

Maybe because you just want to use it? Just look at the map[0], read the legend. Explain who were the people in 18, 17, 11 regions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Famine_en_URSS_1933.jpg

Probably a lot of ethnic Ukrainians? Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Map_of_U...

That's 14 years before 1933, and the border was not there by then, but...

> Are you aware that Ukraine previously had more expansive borders

I would prefer a slighly more credible resource than a postcard made in times of great turmoil.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Evropays...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Su...

The second map separates big cities and the rest, could look misleading in some cases.

This particular map is the territory claimed by the then still newly-minted Ukrainian state. Basically the then-current Ukrainian equivalent of the likes of Greater Serbia, Greater Hungary etc.

There was no border in those territories for so long, anything they could have drawn wouldn't really have any meaningful historical connection. So IIRC they went by the Russian Imperial demographic maps and claimed most territories on those showed >25% "Malorossians". Ironically, this ended up pilfering some territories from Belarus, as well - note where Pinsk is on that map!

It's kinda amusing what these people are bashing current Russian maps with Kherson, yet they are fine with a postcard as the evidence of.. expansive borders.

There's an interesting question there whether the primary distinction for those "minorities with a stronger anti-Soviet sentiment" was ethnic or economic. It just so happens that your average Ukrainian (and, to a lesser extent, southern Russian) peasant was a fair bit more rich - partly because of better soil and climate, and partly because the brutal Russian take on serfdom wasn't practiced as long there as it had been in central Russia. And rich peasants were considered "economic enemies", which Soviets interpreted in very draconian terms (tainted the whole family).

But, of course, this possibility does not exclude the other. If this was the primary motivation, however, it neatly explains why some southern Russian regions were also severely affected despite not having any separatist tendencies.

Outside. Basically, there was a broad swath of territories where smallholder peasants thrived and wouldn't agree to collectivization without state terror. It included most of Soviet-controlled Ukraine and a large chunk of southern Russia.

The discussion basically amounts to "are heavy-handed anti-crime policies targeting urban youths racist against Blacks or not?"

- "No they aren't, because they target all urban youths, including Hispanics and Whites, and not just Blacks" - "Yes they are, because they affect a disproportionate share of young Black people. The fact that they affect a disproportionate share of young Hispanics doesn't make it less racist"

Rostov-on-Don. It was kind of founded 1749 on decree of the Empress Elizabeth so it couldn't get even more Russian. But we have many different ethnicities there https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWD2Kkrd_bo (german filmmaker 1918)

In fact more Kazakhs starved than Ukrainians. The idea that the famine was confined to Ukraine is completely ahistorical.

Collateral damage

The fact that Holodomor was causing collateral damage as you call it means that it was not specifically targeted at Ukranians. The target must have been something else that might even not have to do with nationality

Dare to substitute Holocaust for Holodomor in this context?

If, of course, what you're telling is true.

>The association "USSR = Russians" is part of the systematic attempt by the soviet regime at cultural (and sometimes literal) genocide.

Using "Soviet" and "Russian" interchangeably was, in my opinion, mostly a Western phenomenon. I don't remember Soviet propaganda mixing the two. It always felt weird to me when in Cold War Hollywood movies they would refer to USSR as Russia, or Soviets as Russians. You wouldn't do it here. Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities.

I am curious to know whether this Western perception was supported or opposed by the Soviet state. They have definitely “prioritized” Russian culture internally, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this conflation was at least in part created by the Soviets.

Well, the original Russian culture was destroyed/changed by the communists as much as the Ukrainian one (collectivization, anti-religious movement, industrialization, etc.) The Russian culture before the revolution was very different from what was under USSR. There was little left in the USSR of it other than the language and a few fairy tales.

Never really thought of that in this way. Do you think Russian poets, writers, composers, artists of the early and mid 20th century were a product of the Soviet culture more than the Tsarist/pre-Soviet world?

> Usually they put emphasis on "Soviet man", not on particular ethnicities.

Putting an emphasis on the Soviet man who always speaks Russian language, I can understand how that could create an impression of everyone being Russian.

Holodomor was not genocide.

Communists were internationalists and judged people based on their social class, not nationality. Many areas of the USSR, including in Russia proper, did experience precisely the same level of suffering and death from hunger.

Also, food requisitions in Ukraine which led to Holodomor were organised and conducted by native Ukrainians. It is easy to look up that most senior party and NKVD posts in 1932-33 in Ukrainian SSR were held by Ukrainians - how many posts in Gestapo were held by Jews? For some reason Hitler didn't put Jews in charge of the Holocaust.

It was not a systemic attempt also: if the USSR leaders wanted to kill of all Ukrainians, for some reason they didn't do it systematically at all, year after year. Maybe they didn't want to kill all Ukrainians, after all?

Holodomor, hunger in all other parts of the USSR, Stalin's terror were all the result of the Soviet rule, deeply rooted in class struggle ideology and complete disregard for human life. A lot of people died of hunger simply because Stalin needed to export food taken from them to pay for his Industrialization. No, nationality did not play a role in choosing whom to plunder. Food requisitioners took food from whoever they could find.

If you want a real genocide example perpetrated by the USSR, it is the Chechen expulsion. Systematic, not led by Chechens, ban on settlement remained for many decades. Holodomor was neither targeted only at Ukrainians, was led in Ukraine by Ukrainians, was not systemic, was never a policy of any kind.

You are stating some of the objections to the argument of whether Holodomor constitutes a genocide, (minus the "there were ukranians in senior party positions," this seems a weak new argument to me, especially considering group 13: there absolutely were Jewish people working with the Gestapo), however I agree with Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term "genocide," and believes the famine was planned by Stalin because he feared Ukrainian independence.

Poke through the wikipedia article on the subject, it's well sourced, and I think anybody can see that though there was famine across the USSR at the time, the situation in Soviet Ukraine was unique for many reasons, including in terms of how hard they were hit by the famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

> there absolutely were Jewish people working with the Gestapo

Name one Jew on a senior leadership (~Gauleiter level) position in Nazi Germany. There were certainly tons of Ukrainians occupying positions on all levels of power in USSR. Hell, Ukrainian nationals held top position in the USSR far longer than Russians did. Imagine Nazi Germany headed by a Jew?

As for Wikipedia article, at this age the question is very political and Wikipedia reflects that. Some Ukraians want the first place in this victimhood olympics, and the current political situation favours them in the current political landscape, so they can bend history interpretation to their interests. But you know what, if we use very specific words like "fascism" or "genocide" to name different things we don't like, these words will eventually lose their meaning and become generic insults.

Was Holodomor a tragedy? Sure. Was it a genocide - a targeted systemic effort to kill people of one specific nation - not even close.

Btw, I too could take part in this victimhood olympics if I wanted: my grandparents have fled the Voronezh area (near the Volga river) in 1947 because of extreme famine [0] that killed a lot of people. Note the wording in English version:

"Regions that were especially affected included the Ukrainian SSR with 300,000 dead, and the Moldavian SSR with 100,000 dead. Other parts of the Soviet Union such as the Russian SFSR and the Byelorussian SSR were also affected with 500,000 deaths." - so "especially affected" areas lost fewer people than Russian SFSR which was "also" affected. Unfortunately, these tragedies that were a result of a Soviet rule are viewed through nationalistic lens today, and are being used in propaganda pieces.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%...

But, through amazing coincidence, all the bad things the Russian Empire/USSR did were done by Russians while everything good by Ukrainians. It was some kind of magic. E.g. invasions in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Afghanistan - 100% Russians, not a single Ukrainian, even Brezhnev was Russian. Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians, even Euler. Pushkin? He is the grand-grand-father of Bendera himself. Chikatilo? He is actually a cousin of Putin.

> Russian mathematicians? 100% Ukrainians

It's not true. For example: Andrey Kolmogorov (Soviet Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Kolmogorov

Nikolai Lobachevsky (Russian Empire) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Lobachevsky

Ivan Vinogradov (Russian Empire, USSR) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vinogradov

And many others.

Do not spread propaganda. Be objective, please.

He's been sarcastic: "through amazing coincidence"

Ironically, I mainly see foreigners drawing that false equivalence, and am always puzzled by it, as it seems to be far more persistent than anything constructed by the Soviets themselves. So I don't really think it's rooted in Soviet propaganda, it's always been there, even during early USSR which was worshipping the International. The perception in the US was especially persistent, you can see this in every media article and every public document/speech dating back to the 1920s as calling Soviets "Russians" was widespread.

It's not really surprising. The West has always seen USSR as a new reincarnation of the Russian colonial empire, and its nomenclature reflects that. Conversely, Soviet propaganda always focused on "internationalism" and "brotherhood of the nations" (on paper), and thus always made a clear distinction between the two.

Well to be brutally honest the West is just not that interested in the complicated history and ethnicity of that part of the world and just likes to simplify things.

Anything East of Berlin is "Eastern Europe" for instance.

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