We express our support for Ukraine. Putin is manipulating history.

22 February 2022   Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine tonight, entering territory that has been controlled by pro-Russian separatists since 2014. Vladimir Putin accompanied this clear act of violence with statements questioning Ukraine’s statehood. He declared that the contemporary Ukrainian state was the creation of ‘Russian communists’. Vladimir Putin is manipulating history. Contemporary Ukraine has a long history of the formation of the Ukrainian nation to fall back on. The complexity of this story and its closeness to the history of the Russians, Poles, Jews or Belarusians does not change the fact that the citizens of contemporary Ukraine have the right to freely determine the direction of their country. No country, even with reference to the complicated history of the region, can impose its will on Ukraine.

Our thoughts are with our Ukrainian friends and colleagues, whose cooperation and help allowed for the better in-depth exploration of our shared history of communist dictatorship.