Dan Snow's History Hit - Ukraine and Russia: A Quick History

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Russia has launched an invasion of Ukraine. As European leaders gather and Ukraine makes preparations to defend itself, the world watches. In light of this escalating situation host of the Gone Medieval podcast, Matt Lewis steps in for Dan and runs through a brief but complex history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. He provides some context to the way in which the two states view each other and why Russia asserts that Ukraine is a possession of Moscow despite Ukraine's fierce independence. In doing so, Matt covers a millennium of history that includes Vikings, Mongols, horrifying famine, nuclear disaster and the fall of the USSR.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis, bringing you today's episode because Dan is currently in Antarctica. In light of the developing and escalating situation between Ukraine and Russia, we're going to take a look on the podcast today at the long and complex history of relations between these two states. It may not offer a full explanation for what is happening today, but it provides some context for the way the countries view each other. Why does Russia think Ukraine is a Russian possession, while Ukraine sees itself as fiercely independent from Moscow? It's a story that covers a millennium or more of history, taking in Vikings, Mongols, more than one international conflict, horrifying famine, nuclear disaster and the fall of the USSR.

Today, Russia appears to be invading Ukraine as Ukrainians prepare to defend themselves. The world watches nervously as leaders try to avoid a conflict the likes of which Europe hasn't seen for more than 70 years. We all hope that peace will find a way. This is why we must never forget all that has gone before. The ongoing crisis in relations between Russia and Ukraine threatens to engulf Eastern Europe in a war on a scale not seen since 1945. The eyes of the world are focused on the military activity as politicians scramble to visit the region and encourage a diplomatic solution that will de-escalate a potential confrontation. that will de-escalate a potential confrontation. Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Soviet Russia. It remains politically, militarily and economically important to Russia today.

Precisely why there is a dispute over the sovereignty, or otherwise, of Ukraine is a complex question rooted in the region's history. It's a story more than a thousand years in the making. For much of that time, Ukraine did not exist, at least not as an independent sovereign state, so the name Ukraine will be used to help identify the region around Kiev that was so central to the story. Crimea is an important part of the story too, and its history forms a part of the history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. Today, Kiev is the capital city of Ukraine. A millennium ago, it was the heart of what is known as the Kievan Rus state. Between the 8th and 11th centuries, Norse traders sailed the river routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Predominantly

Swedish in origin, they found their way to the Byzantine Empire and even attacked Persia from the Caspian Sea in the 10th century. Around what is now Kiev, these traders began to settle. They were referred to as the Rus, which seems to have its origins in the word for men who row, since they were so closely associated with the rivers and their ships. Merging with Slavic, Baltic and Finnic tribes, they became known as the Kievan Rus. The importance of Kiev The Rus tribes are the ancestors of those who still bear their name today, the Russian and Belarusian people, as well as those of Ukraine. Kiev was referred to by the

12th century as the mother of Rus cities, effectively denoting it as the capital of Kievan Rus state. The rulers of the region were styled Grand Princes of Kiev. The association of Kiev with the early heritage of the Rus as the root of the Russian people mean the city has a hold over the collective imaginations of those beyond modern Ukraine. It was important to the birth of Russia but now lies beyond its borders. This thousand-year-old connection is the beginning of an explanation of the present tensions. People are always willing to fight over places that exert a pull on them. The Mongol Invasion

In 1223, the irresistible expansion of the Mongol horde reached the Kievan Rus state. On the 31st of May, the Battle of the Kolka River was fought, resulting in a decisive Mongol victory. Although the horde left the region after the battle, the damage had been done, and they would return in 1237 to complete the conquering of Kievan Rus. in 1237 to complete the conquering of Kievan Rus'. This began the breakup of the Rus' states and left the region under the dominion of the Golden Horde, in some places for centuries more. It was during this period that the Grand Duchy of Moscow began to rise, eventually becoming the heart of what is now Russia and providing a new focal point for the Rus people. As the control of the Golden Horde slipped, Ukraine was absorbed into the Grand Duchy of

Lithuania and then the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for a time. The Pull of Russia. Cossacks, who were most closely linked with Kiev and Ukraine, began to resist the control of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and rebelled in favour of joining Russia. Under the Grand Princes of Moscow since 1371, Russia had been slowly forming from disparate states. The process was completed in the 1520s under Vasily III. A Russian state appealed to the Rus peoples of Ukraine and exerted a pull on their allegiance. In 1654, the Cossacks signed the Treaty of Pereyaslav with Tsar Alexis, the second Tsar of the Romanov dynasty. This saw the Cossacks break with the Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth and formally offer their allegiance to the Russian Tsar. The USSR would later style this as an act that reunified Ukraine with Russia, bringing all of the Rus people together under a Tsar. Crimea, which had been a carnate, had been part of the Ottoman Empire, but following war between the Ottoman and Russian empires, Crimea had been briefly independent before being annexed by Russia on the orders of Catherine the Great in 1783, a move that was not resisted by the Tatars of the Crimea and which was recognised formally by the Ottoman Empire. Ukraine emerges. During the 19th century, a Ukrainian identity began to emerge more fully, closely linked to the region's Cossack heritage. By this stage, Russians considered Ukrainians,

as well as Belarusians as ethnically Russian but referred to both groups as Little Russians. In 1804 the growing separatist movement in Ukraine led to a ban on teaching the Ukrainian language in schools in an effort to eradicate the threat of a breakup of the Russian Empire. From October 1853 to February 1856, the region was rocked by the Crimean War. The Russian Empire fought a coalition of the Ottoman Empire, France and the United Kingdom. The conflict saw the battles of Alma and Balaclava, the charge of the Light Brigade and Florence Nightingale's experiences that led to the professionalisation of nursing, before being resolved by the Siege of Sevastopol, a critically important naval base

on the Black Sea. The Russian Empire lost the Crimean War and the Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 March 1856, saw Russia forbidden from basing naval forces in the Black Sea. The embarrassment felt by the Russian Empire led to internal reforms and modernisation in an effort not to be left behind other European powers. Ukraine remained unsettled too and in 1876 the ban on teaching the Ukrainian language put in place in 1804 was extended to prohibit the publication or importation of books, performances of plays and the delivery of lectures in the Ukrainian language. In 1917, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, Ukraine was briefly an independent nation

but was soon to become part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR, that would be a dominant force in world politics for most of the rest of the 20th century, was about to be born. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. More coming up after this. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. More coming up after this. Hi, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. And on my podcast, Not Just the Tudors, we talk about everyone from Thomas Cromwell to Oliver Cromwell,

from Catherine Parr to Catherine de' Medici. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Subscribe from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans.

Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. The USSR

In 1922, Russia and Ukraine were two of the signatories to the founding document of the USSR. With its wide, sweeping, fertile plains, it would become known as the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, providing grain and food that made it an invaluable part of the USSR. That fact only made what happened next all the more shocking. A state-sponsored famine created by Stalin's government in the Ukraine as an act of genocide. Crops were seized and sold to overseas markets to fund Stalin's plans. Animals, including pets, were removed. Soviet soldiers ensured whatever remained was kept from the population, resulting in the deliberate starvation and deaths of up to four million Ukrainians.

During the Second World War, Germany invaded Ukraine, moving across the border on the 22nd of June 1941 and completing their takeover by November. Four million Ukrainians were evacuated east. The Nazis encouraged collaboration by appearing to back an independent Ukrainian state only to renege on that promise once in control. Between 1941 and 1944, around 1.5 million Jews living in Ukraine were killed by Nazi forces. After the USSR was victorious at the Battle of Stalingrad in early 1943, the counter-offensive moved across Ukraine, retaking Kiev in November that year.

The fight for Western Ukraine was hard and bloody until Nazi Germany was driven out altogether by the end of October 1944. Ukraine lost between 5 and 7 million lives during World War II. A famine in 1946-7 claimed around a million more lives and pre-war levels of food production would not be restored until the 1960s. In 1954, the USSR transferred control of Crimea to Soviet Ukraine. There was perhaps a feeling that, with the USSR strong, it made little difference which Soviet state administered the territory, but the move stored up problems for a future in which the Soviet Union no longer existed. On the 26th of April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster took place in Ukraine. During a test procedure on reactor

number four, a power decrease made the reactor unstable. The core went into meltdown, the subsequent explosion destroying the building. Chernobyl remains one of only two nuclear disasters to be rated at the highest level alongside the 2011 Fukushima disaster. The explosion at Chernobyl caused ongoing health issues for the surrounding area and the Chernobyl exclusion zone covered more than 2,500 square kilometres. Chernobyl has been pointed to as one of the contributing causes of the collapse of the USSR. It shook faith in the Soviet government and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Secretary-General of the Soviet government, and Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Secretary General of the Soviet Union,

said it was a turning point that opened the possibility of much greater freedom of expression to the point that the system as we knew it could no longer continue. An independent Ukraine. Five years later, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. Ukraine was one of the signatories of the document disbanding the Union, which meant that it was, at least on the surface, being recognised as an independent state. In the same year, a referendum and election were held. The referendum question was, do you support an act of declaration of independence of Ukraine?

Over 84% of the population took part, almost 32 million people, voting 92.3% in favour of an independent Ukraine. In the presidential election, six candidates ran, all backing the Yes campaign, and Leonid Kravchuk was elected the first president of Ukraine. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became the third largest holder of nuclear weapons in the world. Although it possessed the warheads and the capacity to make more, the software that controlled them was in Russian hands.

Russia and Western states agreed to recognise and respect Ukraine's independent, sovereign status in return for handing most of its nuclear capacity over to Russia. In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances provided for the destruction of the remaining warheads. In 2004, the Orange Revolution took place amid protests about a corrupt presidential election. Protests in Kiev and general strikes across the country eventually saw the election result overturned, and Viktor Yushchenko was replaced by Viktor Yanukovych. The Kiev Appellate Court gave a decision on 13 January 2010

that posthumously convicted Stalin, Ganovich, Molotov and Ukrainian leaders Koziye and Chubar, Molotov and Ukrainian leaders Kozie and Chubar, as well as others, of genocide against the Ukrainian people during the Holodomor of the 1930s. The decision served to reinforce a sense of Ukrainian identity and distance the country further from Russia. 2014 saw a great deal of unrest in Ukraine. The Revolution of Dignity, also known as the Maidan Revolution, erupted as a result of President Yanukovych's refusal to sign a document that would create a political association and free trade agreement with the EU. 130 people were killed, including 18 police officers, and the revolution led to early presidential elections. In the same year, a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine, which Russia is

suspected of sponsoring and which has been termed as an invasion, saw fighting begin in the Donbass region, which continues at present. The move served to solidify the sense of Ukrainian national identity and independence from Moscow. Also in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, which had been part of Ukraine since 1954. The reasons for this are complex. Crimea remains militarily and strategically important with ports on the Black Sea. It's also a place regarded with fondness dating back to the Soviet era when it was a holiday destination. Today, Russia remains in control of Crimea, but that control is not recognised by the international community. The escalation of the Ukraine crisis. Ukraine remains in a state of unrest that dates back to 2014.

It was exacerbated in 2019 by a change to the Constitution of Ukraine that enshrined closer links with both NATO and the EU. This step confirmed Russian fears about the influence of the US and Western European states on its borders, increasing tensions in the region. On 1 July 2021, the law was changed in Ukraine to allow the sale of farmland for the first time in 20 years. The original ban had been put in place to prevent the same sort of takeover by an oligarchy that Russia had seen in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. For Ukraine and Ukrainians,

it creates a huge opportunity to fill a gap in global food supply chains caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Ukraine is presently the largest exporter of sunflower oil in the world, the fourth largest shipper of corn, and delivers grain to countries from Morocco to Bangladesh and Indonesia. Corn yields are presently one third lower than the US and a quarter below EU levels, so there is room for improvement that could see Ukraine's economy boom. so there is room for improvement that could see Ukraine's economy boom.

Rich Gulf states are showing particular interest in supplies of food from Ukraine. All of this means that the former breadbasket of the Soviet Union is seeing its stock rise sharply, bringing with it unwelcome consequences. Today, Russia appears to be invading Ukraine as Ukrainians prepare to defend themselves. President Putin is demanding a clear, long-term resolution to the question of Ukraine's relationship with NATO, insisting that it should not be permitted to join. The relationship between Russia and Ukraine is complex and rooted in an often shared history. Russia has long viewed Ukraine as a Russian province rather than a sovereign state. To counterbalance this perceived attack on its independence, Ukraine has sought closer ties with the West, both with NATO and the EU, which Russia in turn views as a threat to its own security.

Beyond a shared heritage, a sentimental connection to the Rus' states that once centred on Kiev, Ukraine remains important to Russia. It's a buffer between Russia and the Western states and fears that it will join NATO and the EU are perceived as a threat to Russia. As a country with an economy based on the production of food that is thriving and looks set to flourish further, it's economically as well as strategically important. If Russia is not in control of Ukraine, who else might be? There seems to be little room for allowing Ukraine genuine independence and sovereignty. To some extent, Ukraine has become to Russia what Cuba was to the US in the 1960s. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 saw global nuclear war narrowly averted.

Ukraine now requires a sustainable long-term solution to the current crisis that all parties can live with to avoid a repeat of the worst aspects of the 20th century. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our episode of Dan Snow's History. I really appreciate listening to this podcast. I love doing these podcasts. It's a highlight of my career.

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