Photo by Oleksii Syvak
Russian aggression towards Ukraine started in December 2014 with the invasion of Crimea. This is not new in Ukrainian history. The Russian regime has been killing Ukrainians since the time Cathrine the Great destroyed the Ukrainian Republic in 1775. Stalin killed millions of Ukrainians in artificially manufactured famines “Holodomors” (1922-23, 1932-33, and after WWII), the “Executed Renaissance” – massive execution of Ukrainian intelligence in 1933-1937 and through denationalization policies.
Now, Putin and his Russian troops are killing Ukrainians, with the goal to wipe out the Ukrainian language, traditions, and sovereignty. Being a Ukrainian was and is a “crime” a-priori. So if Ukrainians stop fighting — they will be tortured, chased and killed under occupation. That is exactly what is happening now in the occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
This is not the question of territories. This is a question of national existence.
We invite you to watch this playlist of video-lectures by Timothy Snyder about history of Ukraine: The Making of Modern Ukraine.
Read the following article:
Ukrainian resistance to russia roots long ago. It has not just started. It cannot end any other way than Ukrainian victory, because if Ukraine stops – it’s just a question of when it will happen again. And with whom. Because Ukrainians are not the only nation who have suffered from russian federation (meaning: russian-Chechen wars 1994, 1999, russian-Georgian war 2008, Syrian war 2015 and other) and previously from USSR (meaning: Soviet-Lithuanian war 1918, Soviet-Finland wars 1939, 1941, Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries 1940, Soviet occupation of Latvia 1944, deportation of Crimean Tatars 1944)
What is most important to understand is that fighting in this war is a mean of the existence of the Ukrainian nation as a whole. If Ukraine stops the resistance — Ukraine will disappear.
The war started with the Revolution of Dignity , which centrally took place in the center of Kyiv, on the Independence Square. In February 2014, deadly clashes between protesters and state special forces “Berkut” in the capital culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, and the outbreak of the 2014 russian-Ukrainian War. A great documentary on various platforms about the Revolution: “Ukraine on Fire” (available on Netflix).
In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests known as “Euromaidan” began in response to President Yanukovych’s decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia, ending in violent beating of three young students, who came to protest peacefully shortly after this decision was announced. This led to a great revolution all over Ukraine – “Revolution of Dignity”.
Since russian invasion in 2014, on the territories of Donetsk, Luhansk regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, russians created the so-called “People Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, not acknowledged worldwide, self-proclaimed and fabricated. Ukrainians were and are being chased, tortured and ridiculed publicly on these territories if found with any national attributes (flag, emblem, clothing etc). Also all educational institutions began to completely change the teaching system into russian, as well as educating children with propagandistic, anti-Ukrainian views and beliefs.
In 2022, with the start of a full-scale war on the 24th of February, on the temporarily occupied territories of Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, the russification of educational institutions, the prohibition of teaching in Ukrainian and the withdrawal of national attributes emphasizing the Ukrainian identity of the population immediately began. russian occupiers are massively destroying cultural and historical monuments, educational institutions, and (just as in 1627) even books. The invaders are also forcibly trying to integrate temporarily occupied territories into the russian education system, filled with propaganda. Moreover, they are killing teachers of Ukrainian Language and Literature.
russian propaganda is a mean of hybrid informational warfare. It is spread all over russia itself and is being applied to the occupied territories of Ukraine. The propaganda consists of fake information about the nazis regime in Ukraine (stating that Ukrainians are killing russian minorities on its land), targeted disinformation about the history of Ukraine and russia, as well as cyber-attacks.
In the occupied in March 2022 Bucha, Irpin, Borodianka (and other cities, towns and villages who have experienced russian occupation later) evidence of mutilation and torturing, with a further killing of civilians, rape of women and children was found. Besides, russian troops intrude into the houses on the occupied territories, stealing everything they can grab — from pillows and kettles, to washing machines and even toilets. Here is the summary of russian violations in this war.
With the full-scale war people have been under massive shellings in Ukrainian cities. Kyiv, Lviv, Vinnytsia and other cities’ energy infrastructure has been severely damaged, resulting in Blackouts – people were left without electricity, water, or heat during the cold winter of 2023.
The destruction of Kakhovka Dam in June 2023 by Russian forces has been an ecocide, resulting in floods, destroying thousands of houses and leading to deaths of people, as well as ruining Kherson’s region flora and fauna.
Civilian infrastructure is regularly attacked, people are left without homes, injured and even dead – all over Ukraine. The city Mariupol does not have a single civil building untouched by a Russian missile. It was bombed all over in the first months of a full-scale war turning absolutely destroyed with thousands of dead civilians.
We recommend watching an Oscar-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” by Mstyslav Chernov.
Here is some of historical and cultural information about Ukraine and russia’s hundreds of years “relationship”:
Firstly, russia and Ukraine have two different languages. Slavic with Cyrillic alphabet but different. russians cannot understand Ukrainians, when Ukrainians are mostly bilingual in the modern world – knowing and speaking both Ukrainian and Russian from childhood, due to hundred years of russification.
134 times the Ukrainian language was prohibited over the last 400 years. It was denied
of authenticity, called malorosian (small-russian) and prohibited from using and learning. People were killed by talking, writing, teaching, singing, making movies in Ukrainian and about Ukraine.
Here are some of the dates of russification:
- 1753 act of Catherine II prohibiting teaching in Ukrainian language
- 1863 ban on the printing of Ukrainian books, circular of the Minister of Internal
Affairs Valuev: “There was no special malorosian language, there is none, and
there cannot be”
- 1876 the russian emperor Alexander II signed the Emsk order on the total ban of
Ukrainian literature
- 1914 ban on the Ukrainian press and Ukrainian prose
- 1938 compulsory study of the russian language was introduced throughout Ukraine leading to millions of Ukrainians now being bilingual
In modern Ukraine all official institutions, legal structures, the sphere of service and the media are exclusively Ukrainian-speaking, with an exception of the occupied territories.
Secondly, denationalization in the time of Stalinism and later of minority cultures in the Soviet Union – time of a fight against “national bias”.
- 1974 a resolution announcing the creation of a new historical community — the
Soviet people, – for the first time
- 1989 resolution on legislative consolidation of the russian language as the
national language for all Soviet countries
Some of the former Soviet countries are as well either bilingual (Latvia, Lithuania,
Estonia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and others) or speak mostly russian (Belarus).
And last but not least, russian repressions towards Ukrainian cultural figures and
genocide against Ukrainian nation has been the most cruel during the Soviet regime:
- 1926 start of Stalin’s fight against the “national bias”, as he referred it : physical deportations and murders of Ukrainian (and other nations’) figures accused of nationalism”
- 1932-1933 the leadership and the government of the USSR began confiscating crops from Ukrainian villagers, creating the Holodomor (eng. Famine), and pursued a policy of genocide of the Ukrainian people, covering it for years after”. It happened once before – in 1922-1923.
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- 1937 – this year was marked by the term “Executed Renaissance”. Over 1000 Ukrainians, political figures, scientists, poets, novelists, theater and cinema figures, musicians were killed in the Sandarmokh tract, also 50+ thousand Ukrainians killed in Bykivnia forest by the russian regime. There is no way to know a total number, because it was not done publicly and was not registered. Also, these particular crimes were blamed on the nazis regime and USSR never held responsible for them after revealing of the truth.
- 1960 arrests, extermination of the young generation of the Ukrainian intelligence
- In January 1972, the KGB launched Operation Block, arresting a large group of Ukrainian dissidents with further tortures, executions, mental hospitals and camps during 1972, 1974 (for anti-Soviet propaganda, for religious beliefs and for cultural activities).
- The Russian Federation declared itself and was recognized as the legal successor of the USSR in many international organizations. And continues to identify as such. That fact makes modern Russia responsible for all the crimes of the past and explains better the basis of what is happening today
- Ukraine gained its independence in August 1991. After the Revolution on Granite in October 1990 – a student-led hunger strike, located on the main Square of Kyiv for 15 days. The main demand was: preventing the signing of a new union agreement. It ended with success.
- Budapest Memorandum of 1994 – Ukraine inherited from the USSR an army of almost a million people and the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Ukraine gave up the missiles, handing them over to Russia in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.
In 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine.
Our Institute is meant to help people of Ukraine heal from this disaster that has happened to us. We invite you to join our hundreds of years of resistance and help to raise money for a great purpose!
