The Ukrainian Black Sea coast and Odesa are historically Russia’s, according to a propaganda thesis recently reiterated by Vladimir Putin.
Propaganda: Odesa and southern Ukraine have always belonged to Russia and are pro-Russian
NEWS: Russia had no intention of ruining its relations with other states, Putin said. The Russian leader added that, over the course of several decades, Moscow has tried to develop long-lasting relations with Ukraine. However, our “opponents” orchestrated a coup, which led to a conflict that resembles a great tragedy.
“The entire Black Sea region was integrated into Russia following the Russian-Turkish war. Ukraine has nothing to do with it. Neither Crimea, nor the Black Sea region has nothing in common with Ukraine. Odesa is essentially a Russian city. We know that. Everyone knows that”, the president pointed out.
Southeastern Ukraine has always been a pro-Russian area, but Kyiv leaders fabricated some “historical idiocy” about their historical status in the area.
NARRATIVE: Odesa and southern Ukraine belong to Russia
Fact: Odesa and other southern territories belong to Ukraine under international law and according to Russian-Ukrainian bilateral agreements
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: On December 14, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, answered questions addressed by Russian citizens and journalists during a live show titled “The Direct Line”. The Kremlin leader said Odesa has always been a Russian territory, whereas southern regions want to be annexed to Russia. He accused Kyiv of promoting historical falsehoods and fabricating a myth about Ukrainians allegedly being an indigenous people. In the context of his statements about the extension of the “special military operation” in Ukraine until “denazification and demilitarization” are achieved, Putin’s statements about Odesa’s historical past seem to justify future actions at destabilizing the Black Sea region.
In fact, the territorial makeup of certain regions or cities over the course of history bears no importance in the current international law system. Odesa and other regions of Ukraine, including Crimea, are part of the Ukrainian state under international law and Russian-Ukrainian bilateral agreements. In 1997, Russia and Ukraine signed a basic treaty according to which Moscow recognized and promoted the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Ukrainian state. Russia not only recognized the borders of Ukraine, which included the Crimean peninsula and the regions of Odesa, Donetsk and Luhansk, but also pledged, under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, not to threaten or use actual military force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.
Images coming in from southeastern Ukraine in the early weeks of the full-scale invasion proved that Russian-speakers opposed the war and the idea of their territories being annexed to Russia. In March, 2022, thousands of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Melitopol (south), a city captured by the Russians, protested the Russian war and the military occupation. People in other cities tried to stop tanks and determine Russian forces to turn back. However, all these protests were scattered by the occupation regime by means of a campaign meant to terrorize the local population. In Kherson, in the south, the Russian FSB operated at least 20 torture chambers, according to an international investigation. Putin explained these protests and the general sense of disgruntlement that surfaced back then were caused by Kyiv’s persistence in promoting false historical narratives about the Ukrainian roots of these territories.
In fact, from a historical point of view, Russia held the south of Ukraine, including Crimea, only for a short period of time throughout the centuries, compared to other states. If we are to observe the logic of Russian propaganda, these territories should rightfully belong to other states that ruled these territories much longer than Russia, such as Ancient Greece or Turkey.
On the other hand, Russian historiography denies the existence of the Ukrainian people in the area after the creation of the Zaporozhian Sich, made up of Cossacks speaking old Ukrainian, who controlled the southern borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for two centuries.
Cossack churches, houses and cemeteries bearing inscriptions in old Ukrainian were flooded and destroyed after the Soviet Union built reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants. The USSR wiped out all traces of other cultures and nations in southern Ukraine, promoting the idea that these territories were uninhabited before the Russians arrived to populate them. Most historical monuments, including the Cossack settlement of Veliki Lug, where the “Saint Paraskeva” Orthodox Church used to stand long before the Russian Empire ever reached as far as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, were destroyed by the Soviets and flooded under the pretext of creating the Nova Khahovka dam. Russian and later Soviet historiography concealed volumes of evidence about the Cossack rule in present-day southern Ukraine.
Veridica has debunked a number of false narratives disseminated by Russia about the history of Ukrainians and the future of the Ukrainian state. Russian propaganda wrote that Ukrainians expect Russia to save them, whereas the armed conflict in Ukraine is a civil war because Russians and Ukrainians are one and the same people. The Russian media is trying to persuade public opinion that Ukraine did not exist prior to the USSR.
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