Factors of the War in Ukraine

I first heard of the possibility of a war between Russia and Ukraine in the fall of 2007, at a conference. At that time, the likelihood seemed like pure fantasy. Only seven years later, however, what seemed fantastical began to turn into reality.

Ukraine as a state, and Ukrainians as a people, have existed for hundreds of years. The Ukrainian language is significantly closer to the Old Russian language, common to all Eastern Slavs, than the modern Russian language. Notably, Kyiv—now the capital of Ukraine—was once the main city of Kyivan Rus’.

Kyivan Rus’ was almost completely destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. Only the Pskov Republic survived intact, though the Novgorod Republic, Polotsk, and Smolensk were not completely devastated. The rest of the lands were thoroughly plundered by the Mongols. The population was partially destroyed and partially taken into slavery. Rus’ itself fell under the Mongol yoke, a system of dependency of the Russian principalities on the Mongol Empire, and later on the Golden Horde, from 1242 until the end of the 15th century. These events defined the modern geopolitical map of Eastern Europe.

The remnants of the former Kyivan Rus’ were gradually destroyed by a new entity: Muscovy, which then absorbed the territories of both the former Old Russian state and the Golden Horde. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the population of Novgorod was decimated, and residents of Pskov were forcibly resettled to Moscow and other cities. Meanwhile, starting from the time of Ivan III, the Russo-Lithuanian wars began. The Lithuanian Rus’ was the last vestige of Old Rus’, and the events of the 16th century, when Vilnius actively resisted Moscow, resemble today’s events.