- The US Embassy in Kyiv trolled Putin with a meme about the history of Kyiv and Moscow.
- Kyiv was founded centuries before Moscow, and was once at the center of a political federation that Russia's name is derived from.
- Putin has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine is not a real country.
The US embassy in Kyiv trolled Russia with a meme on Tuesday after President Vladimir Putin went on revisionist history tirade on why Ukraine is not a real country.
A photo posted to Twitter by the embassy shows four photos of religious sites in Kyiv from the years 996 to 1108. Underneath is four photos of a forest with "Moscow" written underneath, and marked with the same timeline.
There was no caption.
—U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) February 22, 2022
The meme is a reference to a speech Putin gave on Monday where he claimed that Ukraine was a creation of the Soviet Union and part of Russia's historic territory.
"Ukraine has never had its own authentic statehood. There has never been a sustainable statehood in Ukraine," Putin said. The Russian leader has repeatedly suggested that Ukraine is not a real country, and has referred to Ukrainians and Russians as one people.
Though it's true that Ukraine and Russia have a close history, Putin has offered a distorted, ahistorical representation of their shared past.
Russia was in many ways born out of a medieval political federation founded by Vikings known as Kievan Rus, of which Kyiv was once the capital (Novgorod, a Russian city, also played a key role in the empire's history). The name "Russia" is actually derived from Kievan Rus. And as the meme from the US Embassy in Kyiv alludes to, the present-day Ukrainian capital was a major player in the region long before Moscow even existed.
Much of the territory now part of modern Ukraine would be conquered or ruled over by various empires and kingdoms over the centuries — including the Russian Empire. And Ukraine was also a part of the Soviet Union. But like any country, Ukraine has its own distinct history and culture. Ukrainians in 1991 also ooverwhelmingly voted to leave the Soviet Union in a democratic referendum. But Putin has effectively suggested that Ukraine's future should be determined by Moscow.
Putin on Monday ordered Russian troops into Ukraine's eastern Donbas region after recognizing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as independent states, rather than being a part of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, US embassy staff relocated temporarily to Poland on Monday night, after having previously moved from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv.