Russian expansion and the Ukrainian statehood: historical realities of the 17th - 21th centuries

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Cherkasy Institute of Fire Safety named after Chornobyl Heroes of National University of Civil Defence of Ukraine, Cherkasy, Ukraine

Russian expansion and the Ukrainian statehood: historical realities of the 17th - 21th centuries

Tetiana Chubina

Dr. Habil. (History), Professor

Yanina Fedorenko

Dr. Habil. (History), Professor

Abstract

In the article the process of expansion by Russia is analyzed, which, through the prism of the absolutist paradigm, for 400 years directed its efforts not only to the annexation of the territory of Ukraine, but also to the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian nation.

The purpose of article - analysis of political, economic, spiritual and cultural factors that illustrate the process of the implementation of Russian expansion aimed at the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian nation during the 17th - 21st centuries.

Scientific novelty - the implementation of Russia's expansionist policy on the territory of Ukraine, starting from 1654 and up to the present time, is comprehensively investigated. The periodization of Russian expansion during the 17th - 21th centuries is suggested.

Conclusions. Taking into account the specifics of the chosen topic, we have highlighted five chronological periods during which Russia pursued an expansionist policy with the aim of destroying Ukrainian statehood.

The first period (17th -18th centuries) covers the stage of the initial phase of Russian expansion, starting with the Pereyaslav Council, when all the top leadership of the Ukrainian Cossack state, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, swore allegiance to the Moscow tsar, and to the aggressive policy of Peter I and his successors, as a result of which at the end of the 18th century 80% of Ukrainian lands were part of the Russian empire.

The second period (the 19th - the early 20th century) - was a time when the Russian authorities directed their efforts to maintain the previously captured territories of Ukraine and tried to implement the «Novorossiia» project in the south of the country without much success.

The third period (1922-1991) covers the history of Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union, the main characteristics of which were the complete occupation of the territory of Ukraine and the policy of persuasion of the population using such methods as repression, famine, deportation, total russification, destruction of national self-identification, etc.

The fourth period (1991-2013) - the historical period that began with the declaration of Ukraine's independence and was marked by difficult Russian-Ukrainian relations, as a result of which the Russian federation, seeking revenge, tried to politically, economically, and culturally weaken our country, at the same time compromising it in the eyes of its Western partners.

The fifth period (2014 - nowadays) - the period of the Russian-Ukrainian war, during which the aggressor is trying to conquer the territory of Ukraine, deprive it of its independence, and the Ukrainian people - to win back the lost territories and become a full-fledged player in the global world system.

Thus, having studied the Russian expansion during the 17th - 21st centuries, we can draw conclusions that during all the five periods we have highlighted or the last 400 years of the history of Ukraine, the policy of the north-eastern neighbor was aimed at the annexation of Ukrainian territories and the destruction of statehood. To achieve the goal set for himself, the aggressor used the entire set of military, political, cultural, and spiritual factors.

Keywords: expansion, annexation, russification, repression, deportations, separatism, full-scale war.

Тетяна Чубіна, д-р іст. наук, проф., Черкаський інститут пожежної безпеки імені Героїв Чорнобиля Національного університету цивільного захисту України, Черкаси, Україна

Яніна Федоренко, д-р іст. наук, проф., Черкаський інститут пожежної безпеки імені Героїв Чорнобиля Національного університету цивільного захисту України, Черкаси, Україна

Російська експансія й українська державність: історичні реалії ХVІІ-XXI СТ.

Анотація

expansion russia destruction statehood

У статті проаналізовано процес здійснення експансії Росією, яка крізь призму абсолютистської парадигми протягом 400-та років спрямовувала свої зусилля не тільки на анексію території України, а й знищення української державності та української нації.

Мета дослідження - аналіз політичних, економічних та духовно-культурних чинників, які ілюструють процес реалізації російської експансії, спрямованої на знищення української державності та української нації протягом XVII-XXI ст.

Наукова новизна - комплексно досліджено здійснення експансійної політики Росією щодо території України, починаючи з 1654 року і до теперішнього часу. Запропоновано періодизацію російської експансії протягом XVII-XXI століть.

Висновки. Зважаючи на специфіку обраної теми, нами виділено п'ять хронологічних періодів, впродовж яких Росія проводила експансійну політику з метою знищення української державності.

Перший період (XVII-XVIII ст.) охоплює етап початкової фази російської експансії, починаючи від Переяславського ради, коли все вище керівництво Української козацької держави на чолі з Богданом Хмельницьким присягнуло на вірність московському цареві, і до агресивної політики Петра І та його спадкоємців, в результаті якої на кінець XVIII ст. 80% українських земель опинилось у складі Російської імперії.

Другий період (XIX - початок XX ст.) - час коли російські можновладці спрямували свої зусилля на утримання раніше захоплених територій України та без особливих успіхів спробували реалізувати на півдні країни проект «Новоросія».

Тертій період (1922-1991 рр.) охоплює історію України у складі Радянського Союзу, основними характеристиками якого стала повна окупація території України та проведення політики переконання населення із застосуваннями таких методів як репресії, голодомори, депортації, тотальна русифікація, знищення національної самоідентифікації тощо.

Четвертий період (1991-2013 рр.) - історичний проміжок часу, що розпочався проголошенням незалежності України та відзначився складними російсько-українськими відносинами, в результаті яких РФ, прагнучи реваншу, намагалася політично, економічно та культурно послабити нашу країну, при цьому скомпрометувавши її очах західних партнерів.

П'ятий період (2014 р. - теперішній час) - період російсько-української війни, в ході якої агресор намагається завоювати територію України, позбавити її незалежності, а український народ - відвоювати втрачені території та стати повноправним гравцем глобальної світової системи.

Таким чином, дослідивши російську експансію протягом ХVІІ-XXI ст., можемо зробити висновки про те, що протягом усіх, виділених нами п'яти періодів або останніх 400 років історії України, політика північно-східного сусіда була спрямована на анексію українських територій та знищення державності. Для досягнення поставленої для себе мети, агресор використовував усю сукупність військових, політичних, культурно-духовних чинників.

Ключові слова: експансія, анексія, русифікація, репресії, депортації, сепаратизм, повномасштабна війна.

Introduction

The topic of Russian expansion has not disappeared from the sphere of scientific and informational spaces for the past eight years. That is, from the time when the annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea took place almost without any resistance, separate processes began in the East of our country, which turned into the Ukrainian-Russian war, the apogee of which was February 24, 2022, the day of the full-scale invasion of the Russian army into the territory of Ukraine.

The absolutist paradigm has always been a priority in Russian politics at various stages of its historical development, and, accordingly, was accompanied by the expansion of new territories, which were used as evidence to demonstrate it's own power and greatness. Unfortunately, Russia's north-western neighbor and, therefore, the main victim of the aggressor state is Ukraine, which for almost 400 years turned into one of the priority objects of Russian expansion and is forced to fight for the restoration of captured territories, freedom and independence. That is why this topic has scientific and socio-political significance, which determines its relevance.

Research analysis

The topic of Russian expansion is the subject of research by many historians. It is worth noting that scientists mainly consider it within a certain historical period. So, V. Horobets and O. Strukevych [7] thoroughly researched the Ukrainian-Russian political relations of the second half of the 17th-18th centuries, determining the trends of their development and characterizing the development of incorporation trends in the politics of the Russian rulers during this period of time.

Russian expansion policy in the 17th - 18th centuries also became a priority object of study in the scientific explorations of I. Facynets [31] and P. Kralyuk [14]. The first one focused his attention on the analysis of political, economic, cultural and spiritual factors that formed the basis of the colonization policy of the Russian empire on Ukrainian lands, and the second - characterized the Treaty of Hadyatsk and determined its role in the subsequent political history of Ukraine.

The origins of the formation of Russian chauvinist politics and the formation of Russian ideologues are considered in the works of L. Iershova [13] and R. Marutyan [19]. Ukrainian historian L. Zaliznyak [11] determined the characteristic features of the Russian imperial policy in relation to the part of the territory of Ukraine controlled by it in the 19th century, and F. Turchenko, G. Turchenko [29] and O. Gava [8] focused their main attention on the study of the attempts of the Russian monarchs to implement the «Novorossiia» project in the southern regions of Ukraine. An important factor in the Russian expansion of the territory of Ukraine was the policy of cultural and spiritual orientation aimed at the destruction of the national archetype and national self-identification. The peculiarities of the implementation of such a policy in the 20th century are highlighted in the works of Yu. Badzo [1] and V. Nechitailo [21].

It is also worth noting the scientific explorations of P. Hai-Nyzhnyk [3] and I. Losev [18], who studied Ukrainian-Russian relations in the late 1990s and 2000s. Having examined in detail the chronology of events in modern Ukrainian history, as well as the peculiarities of the construction of the main trajectories of the policy of the Russian aggressor, aimed at weakening the state, scientists tried to identify the main mistakes of the authorities, which ultimately led to the escalation of the conflict and the beginning of the war in 2014. The research of V. Golovko [4], B. Levyk [17] and L. Kryvziuk [15] also attract attention, whose publications analyze in detail the course of the first period of the Russian-Ukrainian war, better known as the undeclared war in the East.

In general, we can state that the historiographic base is quite representative. However, today there are no scientific works in which the process of russian expansion during the 17 th - 21th centuries would be comprehensively investigated.

The purpose of the article is to carry out an analysis of political, economic, spiritual and cultural factors that illustrate the process of Russian expansion aimed at the destruction of Ukrainian statehood and the Ukrainian nation during the 17 th - 21st centuries.

The statement of the basic material

The history of Russian expansion on the territory of our country is more than one hundred years old. Its origins date back to the 17th - 18th centuries, during which the neighboring state began to make efforts aimed at the incorporation of Ukrainian lands. Thus, the military-political union between Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi and Tsar Oleksii Mykhailovich of Moscow, which was ratified by the March Articles of 1654, was understood by each party in its own way. The Ukrainian side - as a means of preserving state independence and opposing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian side - as the accession of new vassal territories. In the end, the de facto young Ukrainian state came under the nominal sovereignty of Moscow, which immediately began its usual practice developed over centuries, which consisted in intensifying political, economic, spiritual and cultural manipulations with the aim of fully subordinating the territory of the Hetmanship.

One of the vivid examples of Moscow's violation of its promises was the separate Vilnius Armistice of 1656 [6] when it concluded an agreement with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth behind the back of the Ukrainian side, violating all agreements with the Ukrainian leadership, whose representatives, by the way, were not even allowed to the negotiating table. Such a step on the part of the allies prompted Bohdan Khmelnytskyi to change his foreign policy guidelines in search of other allies.

In 1657, after the death of the hetman, a real struggle began on the territory of Ukraine. Thus, on the one hand, Moscow is making attempts to expand and legalize its control over Ukrainian lands, and on the other hand, the Ukrainian state leadership in the person of Hetman Vyhovsky, trying to resist Moscow's influence, concludes the Treaty of Hadiach with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth [14] and starts a war with a former ally.

In 1959, the youngest son of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, Yuriy, was elected hetman, he was forced to sign the infamous Pereyaslav Articles of 1659 [33, a рк.1], which deprived Ukraine of its political independence (the Hetman was forbidden to conduct an independent foreign policy, he also lost the right to appoint higher government positions without the approval of the king).

The attack on the autonomy of the Hetmanship became even more active after Ivan Bryukhovetsky came to power. It was he who became the first Hetman who visited Moscow in 1665 and signed the Moscow Articles, which recorded even greater restrictions on the political rights of Ukrainians. In particular, Moscow was able to directly intervene in the elections of the Hetman [31]. However, after the Kremlin signed the Andrusiv armistice with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1667, the Moscow Articles were unilaterally torn by the outraged Ukrainian Cossacks.

In general, the period of 1660-1670 in the history of Ukraine, most of the historians, in particular B. Horobets and O. Strukevych [7, c.41], call the most dynamic in the 17th century since the vectors of political life in Ukraine constantly fluctuated from separate treaties with the Muscovite kingdom to the complete severance of relations. The Glukhiv Articles by Demyan Mnogogrishnyi of 1669 became a certain political compromise of this stage [34, a рк.1], which, on the one hand, legitimized the administrative autonomy of the Left Bank Hetmanship, and on the other, their individual provisions (the prohibition of the Hetman to conduct an independent foreign policy and the abandonment of tsarist voivodes in five large cities of the Hetmanship), stated significant concessions to Moscow.

The next century passed under the auspices of the full incorporation of the controlled territory of Ukraine. The expansion policy of Peter I and his heirs was aimed at the final incorporation of the territory of the Hetmanship. Thus, in 1709, under Hetman Ivan Skoropadsky, the Institute of Residency was created, the main task of which was to control the activities of the Hetman. In 1722-1725, the First Malorossiia Board functioned on the controlled territory of Ukraine, whose activity testified to the transfer of the imperial management system and the complete control of the Russian emperor over Ukrainian lands.

After the death of Danylo Apostol, the Russian overlord forbade the election of a Hetman and introduced the rule of a collegial body, which went down in history as the Hetman Government. And the final end to autonomy was put by the rule of Catherine II, when in 1764 the institution of the Hetmanship was abolished, in 1775 Zaporizhzhya Sich was destroyed, in 1781 the regimental-soten system was abolished, and then the entire territory of the former Hetmanship was divided into provinces.

Along with the political annexation of Ukrainian territories, the processes of economic and spiritual and cultural expansion were closely intertwined. In particular, we can talk about the beginning of economic expansion from the period when Ivan Bryukhovetsky signed the Moscow Articles, one of the clauses of which emphasized that the taxes collected on the territory of the Hetmanship would benefit the royal treasury.

Economic expansion deepened more during the stay on the tsarist and the later imperial throne of Peter I, who, after the transfer of Hetman Ivan Mazepa to the side of the Swedish king Charles XII, began an open robbery of Ukrainian territories. First, Ukrainian merchants were forbidden to export their goods through the southern borders, permission was only granted for the ports of Riga, St. Petersburg, and Arkhangelsk. Secondly, Ukrainian merchants were subject to high customs duties, while Russian merchants could conduct duty-free trade. In order to bypass the introduced innovations and avoid ruin, many Ukrainians were forced to take Russians as companions [10, c.7].

Subsequently, already during the reign of Peter's daughter, Elizaveta, the customs borders between the Hetmanship and the Russian territories proper were eliminated, which subsequently facilitated the economic absorption of Ukrainian lands. And in 1783, serfdom was legalized on the territory of the former Hetmanship by Catherine II and active development of lands in the south of Ukraine, obtained by the Russian empire as a result of two Russo-Turkish wars, took place.

The spiritual and cultural component became an important element of russian expansion in the 17th - 18th centuries. After all, Moscow understood that its traditional chauvinist doctrine could be opposed by a completely different, Ukrainian one, which was diametrically opposed, with the priority of such values as will, freedom, and independence. And this, in turn, on a subconscious level prevented the Ukrainian population from perceiving the worldview of their northeastern neighbor, alien to them, whose world revolved around the «father-tsar».

It is worth noting that the main philosophical doctrine of the Muscovite Empire became the ideologeme about Moscow as the third Rome. Although it was formed at the beginning of the 16th century, particular popularity it gained in the 17th century, during the reign of Olexii Mykhailovich and Peter I, and was used by them to justify their own imperial ambitions. The main thesis of the doctrine was based on the assertion of the exclusivity of Moscow as the legal successor of the Roman Empire and the spiritual center of Orthodoxy [19].

Based on this ideology, the Muscovite kingdom was transformed into the russian empire. And in this transformation and growth of chauvinist ideology, an exceptional place belongs to the rector of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Feofan Prokopovich, who suggested to Peter I that the name of the empire he created should be the Greek version of Kyivan Rus - «Russia» [13, c. 2], thus portraying her as the heir of the ancient Russian civilization.

At the same time, a powerful movement on the part of the Russian clergy, aimed at the annexation of the Ukrainian Church, became active. It is worth noting that the first attempts at political expansion in the spiritual and cultural sphere were traced back to the time of the adoption of the Pereiaslav articles, in which one of the clauses stated that the Ukrainian metropolitan should come under the authority of the Moscow patriarch. However, this thesis caused huge opposition from the Ukrainian clergy from the beginning. And although individual pro-Moscow priests tried to inspire Ukrainians with a loyal attitude to Moscow as the center of Orthodoxy and to the tsar as the head of the state, consecrated by God, at that time it was not possible to establish a spiritual protectorate over the Hetmanship. Later, Moscow returned to this idea, and through numerous manipulations in 1686 annexed the Kyiv Metropolitanate, joining it to the Moscow Patriarchate.

Simultaneously with the spiritual and religious expansion, active work was also carried out on the assimilation and russification of the Ukrainian population. In particular, the tsarist government encouraged marriages between representatives of both peoples, both among Cossack elders and within ordinary Cossack and peasant families.

In 1720, Peter I for the first time banned the printing of Ukrainian-language books and introduced censorship of religious literature, announcing the unification of church books [12]. The russification policy did not escape Ukrainian education either. Thus, starting in 1783, the education of students at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and other Ukrainian colleges was to be conducted exclusively in Russian, and in 1786, after the adoption of the «Statute of National Schools», so-called national schools were created, in which education was conducted exclusively in Russian.

Russian expansion spread to other segments of the cultural and spiritual sphere. In particular, when creating architectural compositions of religious buildings, it was forbidden to build in the national style, i.e. in the Ukrainian (Cossack) Baroque style, a style that was definitely an expression of Ukrainian mental identity at the time.

So, during the 17th - 18th centuries, the Russian empire managed to annex 80% of the territory of Ukraine, starting political, economic and spiritual-cultural expansion. In the official documents of the Russian empire, the derogatory name of the incorporated Ukrainian lands - Malorossiia - appeared.

The next period of Russian expansion (19th - early 20th centuries) took place under the auspices of the final transformation of the territory of our state into a constituent part of the Russian empire and the full establishment of the ideology that Russia is the heir of Kyivan Rus, which was accompanied by efforts to completely destroy the national Ukrainian archetype and self-identity, liquidation as a layer of the national Ukrainian elite, Ukrainian national culture, etc.

The political component of the expansion process at this point in time was closely intertwined with the cultural and spiritual, since it was important for the Russian authorities to create a sense of national identity in the minds of more than eight million Ukrainians, and thus to reduce any risks of political destabilization that could eventually arise in the local population in the annexed territories. However, it should not be forgotten that the 19th century - the period of Ukrainian national revival. Therefore, it is during this period that the defeat of the Cyril and Methodius Society in 1847, the ban on the community movement, and the total russification and ban on the printing of Ukrainian books, reinforced by the Valuev circular of 1863 and the Ems decree of 1872, fall.

In view of the future development of the narrative by Russian propaganda that the south of Ukraine is the primordial Russian territory inhabited exclusively by the Russian-speaking population, it is important from the perspective of the 19 th century to recall the attempts to implement the «Novorossiia» project, whose ideological inspiration was Catherine II. Although it was started in the late 80s of the 18th century, it was most actively implemented in the 19 th century.

The main idea of the imperial powers was precisely the mass settlement of the territories of the Azov and Black Sea regions, new for the Russian empire, by Russians and representatives of other ethnic groups, while the Ukrainian population was to be deported outside the territory of Ukraine, in particular to Siberia and the Caucasus.

However, according to the research of many Ukrainian historians, in particular, L. Zaliznyak, F. Turchenko, O. Gava, the population of modern Ukraine itself played a key role in the settlement of Southern Ukraine. In particular, according to the results of the first census, the share of Ukrainians in these territories was 70-85% [8], while the share of the Russian population did not exceed 5%. To correct the situation, from the second half of the 19 th century imperial government officials intensified the practice of forced relocation of Ukrainians to the East. Thus, according to Volodymyr Butkevych, from 1896 to 1914, 1,690,000 Ukrainians were deported to Siberia [2], and Russians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Germans, Jews, Moldovans, etc. were settled in the liberated territories.

As for the Crimean Peninsula, Russians appeared in these territories only after the conquest of the Crimean Khanate in 1783, while Ukrainians made up a significant part of the population of the Crimean Peninsula since the 17th century [11, c.78]. However, there was one catch - being the majority of the population of the Azov and Black Sea regions, Ukrainians mostly lived in rural areas, while the Russian-speaking population lived in cities. According to Fedor and Halyna Turchenko, the traditional focus of Ukrainians on agriculture led to their slow inclusion in industry and trade, which rapidly developed in these territories as a result of the industrial revolution of the 19th century [29, c. 46], instead, how other ethnic groups became active leaders of the industrial revolution in the East and South of Ukraine. Due to this fact, the Ukrainians got the impression that they are an exclusively rural nation. The situation improved already at the beginning of the 20th century, when the rapid urbanization of the Ukrainian population began in the urban sector of the south and east of Ukraine. In that historical period, according to Ivan Terlyuk, every second inhabitant of the South and East was ethnically Ukrainian, and only every fifth was Russian [28, c.230] Which became a vivid proof that the imperial project «Novorossiia» was defeated on the territory of our country, because the south, despite the total russification, remained mainly Ukrainian.

Thus, we can summarize that during the 19 th and early 20th century, the Russian empire continued its expansion policy on the territory of Ukraine, directing it to the suppression of any national manifestations, the total russification of the Ukrainianspeaking population, and the establishment in the public consciousness of the impression of Ukrainians as exclusively rural nation, maloross, etc.

The third period of Russian expansion, in our opinion, was one of the most dramatic in the country's history. The defeat of the Ukrainian revolution and the liberation struggle of 1917-1921 led to almost 70 years of Ukraine being part of a modified but essentially unchanged centralized entity called the Soviet Union, in which the monarchical family was replaced by a party nomenclature. After a lost four-year struggle for independence, at the end of 1920, an alliance treaty was signed between the USSR and the RSFSR. And in 1922, the USSR was created, which included Ukraine formally as an equal federal state with clearly defined borders, its own administrative and territorial division, and a constitution. That is, all signs of state sovereignty at first glance were preserved. However, it quickly became obvious that the percentage of independence of the subjects of the federation was almost zero. And the historical development of the Ukrainian SSR within the USSR took place under the auspices of the political, economic, and cultural and spiritual expansion carried out by the Soviet leadership.

The Soviet leadership managed to implement a plan for the complete occupation of the territory of Ukraine, and eventually, according to the German-Soviet agreements, better known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, the western regions of Ukraine found themselves in the sphere of influence, and later were annexed to the Soviet Union. Transcarpathia was the last region annexed in 1945. The policy of the Soviet Union concerning Ukraine was implemented due to the Red Terror of the Russian troops, three waves of terrible repressions, which were combined with three famines, which the majority of the world community recognized as genocide of the Ukrainian people, and also due to mass deportations of the population.

Economic steps were added to political steps. After a short respite during the NEP years, Ukraine as part of the Soviet Union was overtaken by the policy of industrialization and collectivization, which left their bloody traces in the history of our state. It is worth noting that the nature of Soviet power consisted in the accumulation of all economic processes in the center, i.e. Moscow, while the growing differences between it and the periphery were of little concern to the political leadership [26]. In the end, this approach to solving economic problems led to stagnation of the economy, later to an economic crisis, a deficit and a significant lag of the countries that were part of the USSR from the countries of the West.

The draconian political and economic decisions of the Soviet leadership were accompanied by mass repressions. It is worth noting that in the first population censuses conducted by the Soviet authorities in 1920, 1923 and 1926, the majority of the population in the territories annexed by the Russians were ethnic Ukrainians [29, c.106]. That is why the Soviet authorities started actions aimed at reducing the national segment, especially in the territories of the East and South of Ukraine. One of these steps was the deportation of Ukrainians. The first mass deportations took place in 1925-1928, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who continued to live in the territories included in the borders between the Ukrainian SSR and the RSFSR were deported to the east of their new `motherland'. For this purpose, three regions were created - Zelenyi Klyn (respectively the territory of the Far East), Malynovyi Klyn (Kuban) and Siryi Klyn (South-West Siberia) [23].

The next wave of forced resettlement covers the period of depopulation of the rural population (early to mid - 1930s). In the first years alone, 31,593 peasant families were deported outside their homeland. Of these, 19,658 families were evicted to the north of the Soviet Union, and 11,935 families were forcibly sent to Siberia [27].

One of the most shameful pages related to the deportations of the population from the territory of Ukraine took place during May 18-20, 1944, when nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars were forcibly removed from the territory of the Crimean Peninsula in freight wagons [20], and instead, on July 14, Stalin personally allowed Russians mainly from the Kursk, Oryol, and Voronezh regions to move to the liberated territory. At the beginning of the 1990s, the number of the population that identified themselves as Russians according to the national indicator fluctuated at the level of 59%, which ultimately contributed to the deepening of the total russification of the peninsula and the growth of separatist sentiments in the future.

As for the territory of the western regions of Ukraine, the deportations of the Ukrainian population continued during 1944-1951. As a result of the forced eviction, the homeland lost more than 750 thousand ethnic Ukrainians.

The policy of forced deportations of the Ukrainian population and the settlement of the South, East of Ukraine, as well as the Crimean Peninsula by ethnic Russians, the total russification of the political, educational and cultural spheres of life in the Ukrainian SSR, had as their goal not only the suppression of national resistance, but also the creation of a new community of people with an artificially formed worldview under the general name «Soviet people». According to the plan of the Kremlin ideologues, each individual in this formation had to be deprived of any national manifestations, gradually transforming into a typical «gray mass» of people.

Starting from the 1950s, this process became particularly active. It was then, according to Yuriy Badzo, that the ideology of internationalization became the basis of the new worldview concept of the formation of the Soviet archetype. The concept was based on the worldview guidelines of Stalinism as the basis for the creation of a single Soviet people and opposed any manifestations of national revival, which at that time was personified by the young generation of the sixties [1, c. 342]. In the last historical aspect of the existence of the Soviet Union, publications often appeared on the pages of official publications, suggesting to Soviet society that there were only a few years left before the formation of a new historical community of the Soviet people from workers, collective farm workers and popular intelligentsia.

The results were not long in coming, the policy of the party nomenclature, aimed at changing the national worldview and transforming the Ukrainian people into a single Soviet one, led to sad consequences - the identification of the majority of Ukrainians with Ukraine itself was very weak. In particular, according to the research of V. Nechytailo, a significant part of the population did not aspire to an independent state life, as they considered themselves part of the Soviet people. Even the rural population, which was more archaic and often acted as a talisman of the spiritual values of the people, did not recognize the national symbols and opposed the secession of Ukraine from the USSR [21, c. 122]. And the second President of Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma, in his memoirs «Ukraine is not Russia» emphasized that according to the 1989 census, 12.3% of the country's population did not consider Ukrainian to be their native language, and 11.8 million people in the Ukrainian SSR did not speak it at all [16, c.258]. Thus, it can be asserted that during the 70-year stay of Ukraine as part of the USSR, the majority of the population russified and considered itself a component of the single «Soviet people».

So, we can conclude that during the period when Ukraine was part of the USSR, the russian aggressor used all the levers of a political, economic, cultural and spiritual nature to completely eradicate the idea of national independence from the minds of Ukrainians.

August 24, 1991, began a new period in the history of Ukrainian-Russian relations. On this day, as a result of the failed August putsch, Ukraine declared its independence. The citizens of the country confirmed their choice on December 1, when more than 90% of the population supported the Act of Independence of Ukraine and elected Leonid Kravchuk as the first president of Ukraine.

As for Russia's position on the independence of the former subject of the union federation, it can be argued that it had a dual character. On the one hand, the Kremlin authorities supported the illusion of good-neighborly relations, and on the other hand, Ukraine's independence was perceived as an unfortunate misunderstanding. The fact that only four days after the declaration of independence, namely on August 28, 1991, a Russian delegation headed by the Vice-President of the Russian federation Oleksandr Rutskoi arrived in Kyiv is indicative. The guests from Moscow aimed to force the state leadership of Ukraine to abandon the Act of Declaration of Independence. When they heard a negative answer, they resorted to blackmail, threatening to redistribute the existing borders [5].

It is worth noting that political and economic problems (parliamentary crisis of 1993, the economic crisis of 1998, two Chechen wars, constant interference in the affairs of former satellites of the Soviet Union (the Transnistrian issue, war in Tajikistan, conflicts of the Caucasus states), hyperbolized growth of banditry in Russia itself) forced the Moscow elite to pay the main attention to their solution and temporarily withdraw from the radical consideration of the «Ukrainian question».

In the late 1990s, Ukraine and the Russian federation signed a number of agreements. Among them, it is worth noting the Agreement «On Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership» (signed in 1997, ratified by the Ukrainian side in 1998) [25], Agreement between Ukraine and Russia on the status and conditions of stay of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian federation on the territory of Ukraine in 1997 [30], which was supposed to stabilize the situation related to the Black Sea Fleet and the status of the city of Sevastopol. And finally, the Agreement between Ukraine and the Russian federation on the Ukrainian-Russian state border, 2003 [9] (ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 2004).

However, despite the steps taken in the development of Ukrainian-Russian relations, a number of issues remained unresolved until the end, which deepened the confrontation between the countries in the future. One of these issues was the incomplete agreement of border lines in the area of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, which eventually provoked the first territorial conflict between the countries around Tuzla Island. And only Leonid Kuchma's readiness to offer armed resistance forced the Moscow side to back off from the construction of a dam near the island of Tuzla and for a certain time to slow down its intentions of armed expansion of the territory of Ukraine.

The beginning of the 2000s was marked by the Orange Revolution of 2004, which was a time when, against the background of the confrontation between the pro-Russian candidate for the post of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and the pro-Ukrainian Viktor Yushchenko in Kyiv, the first attempt to seize power was made in the eastern regions. Thus, in Severodonetsk, at a congress of councils in which the Russian delegation participated, the issue of South-Eastern autonomy was discussed [3, c.221]. Ukrainian law enforcement structures reacted quickly, and criminal cases were opened against most of the participants of the separatist gathering, but they managed to escape punishment then. As for Russia, this event became a kind of experiment with the use of «Eastern separatism».

In addition to attempts at territorial expansion, the Russian federation also started an economic one, known as the gas wars of 2005-2006 and 2008 - 2009. As a result, under the terms of the `gas agreements' signed by the Prime Minister (at the time) Yulia Tymoshenko in Moscow, which were extremely unfavorable for the Ukrainian side, the monopoly of the future aggressor on the supply of natural gas to our country was secured, in addition, Ukraine had to pay for 1 cubic meter of gas 450 dollars. The gas wars vividly demonstrated to Ukrainian society the political line of the Kremlin towards our country.

It is worth noting that during the entire period of Ukrainian-Russian relations during the 1990s and early 2000s, any intentions of Ukraine to protect its national interests in the external and internal spheres were perceived extremely negatively by the neighboring state. Moreover, such steps were immediately declared by Moscow as manifestations of «Ukrainian nationalism», which were equated with fascism and called «anti-Russian policy», which harms the process of «integration» [18, c.64]. The very concept of «integration» became the Kremlin's new narrative and began to be mass-produced by the mass media both from the Russian side and the pro-Russian Ukrainian one.

In addition, the Russian side began to generously finance the so-called «fifth column», people who were supposed to destabilize the situation inside the state and fuel separatist manifestations, especially in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as well as in the South and East of our state. For this purpose, entire Russian intelligence networks were created and implemented on the territory of Ukraine, under the cover of the FSB. Within the Kremlin project, large sums were allocated to finance pro-Russian parties, in particular, the Party of Regions, the Communist Party of Ukraine, the United Russ Party, the Union of Left Forces, and many others, as well as veiled Russian TV channels that often broadcast paid political shows on national television, the activities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UPC), which became the main guide of the idea of «Russian world», which appeared in the information space in 2007.

Consciously and persistently, Moscow also carried out expansion on the cultural and spiritual front, promoting the dominance of Russian mass culture and its priority over national Ukrainian culture. The film industry, music industry, radio broadcasts, etc. worked to win this segment. The work of Russian actors and singers was popularized, while actually Ukrainian artists almost always took second place in the cultural rating of any average resident of the country. As a result of the concerted policy of the Kremlin, until 2014, in the minds of many russians, as well as a large part of Western politicians and a part of Ukrainian society, such narratives inspired by the aggressor as «Ukraine is a small state that did not exist before the emergence of the USSR, and its creator is Volodymyr Lenin», «Ukraine is not a sovereign state, but an «anti-Russian project» financed by the West to destabilize Russia», «Ukrainian language does not exist. This is an artificial Russian dialect, which at one time was influenced by the Polish language», «Ukraine suppresses the rights of the Russian - speaking population», etc [24]. That is, it was during this period that Russia launched an information war on the territory of Ukraine, which became one of the components of a hybrid war with the aim of creating a favorable basis for the annexation of Ukrainian territories in the near future.

So, since the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, Russia began preparing for its revenge aimed at uniting the former Soviet republics under its own hegemony. To this end, it politically and economically weakened Ukraine, trying to bring it under its control, as well as destroy the Ukrainian armed forces and discredit in the eyes of Western partners as a country where corruption flourishes and oppression of national minorities takes place. Also, the Kremlin created a series of narratives for the West, its own consumers, and the marginal Ukrainian masses that denied the independence of the state and the authenticity of the Ukrainian language.

A new stage of Russian expansion began in 2014. At that time, the Russian federation almost completely controlled the fuel and energy complex in Ukraine, partially - the communications industry and the banking sector. The activation of these processes intensified after the rise to power of the criminal-oligarchic clans led by the fourth president, Viktor Yanukovych. The state policy vectors of the new leadership were aimed at deepening relations with the North-Eastern neighbor, but it also verbally supported a pro-European position and aimed to sign the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union in November 2013. However, on November 20, the Cabinet of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov suddenly adopted an order suspending preparations for signing the document, instead declaring that the country needs to resume an active dialogue with Russia and other CIS countries. On November 21, the first demonstrations were held in Kyiv against such decisions of the authorities, which eventually turned into one of the bloodiest and at the same time the most heroic pages of the modern history of Ukraine - the Revolution of Dignity. Only according to official data, during the violent crackdown on Euromaidan in January-February 2014, 107 people were killed.

Viktor Yanukovych, after losing control over the situation, which rapidly developed and turned into mass murders by security forces of protesters, fled from

Kyiv exactly 3 months after the beginning of the first demonstrations - on February 21, 2014. At the same time, the Ministries of Defense and Internal Affairs, the Security Service, the General Prosecutor's Office and many other structures belonging to the executive authorities were left without their leaders, who soon found themselves abroad, mainly in the Russian federation. On February 22, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Volodymyr Rybak, also resigned, and on February 28, the then Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykola Azarov. Ukraine essentially found itself without the heads of the legislative, executive and partially judicial branches of power.

The legal vacuum that temporarily formed in Kyiv and was essentially directed by the Kremlin became the signal for the beginning of the military expansion of the peninsula. On the night of February 27, 2014, the russian «little green men» seized administrative buildings belonging to the government and parliament of the Crimean Autonomous Republic almost without resistance. Practically under the muzzles of machine guns, the local parliament elected the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the «Republic of Crimea», a collaborator with Russia, Serhiy Aksyonov. The armed forces of the enemy began to control all objects of the critical infrastructure of the autonomy, and later turned off the broadcast of Ukrainian means of mass telecommunications - radio and television.

Instead, the Ukrainian troops waited for the command to resist, but from the newly elected acting the President of Ukraine O. Turchynov did not receive it. Later it turned out that part of the Ukrainian military officers (about 10 thousand) was recruited by the Russians and did not resist at all [4, c.184]. A part of the military loyal to the oath to defend Ukraine received an order to leave the Autonomous Republic of Crimea after a brief resistance. Also, the Ukrainian side managed to evacuate 3 warships, 32 units of support vessels, 24 planes and helicopters, and 1,438 units of armored vehicles and vehicles from the peninsula [17, c. 34].

Further events took place at a record speed: on March 11, the city council of Sevastopol and the parliament of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea adopted a «declaration of state sovereignty», and on March 16, an illegal referendum, which was originally planned for May 25, was held, completely orchestrated by the Russian federation. Its results (96. 77% of residents supported the accession of the Autonomous Republic to Russia) were considered illegitimate by the world public. On March 18, according to an accelerated procedure, documents were signed in the Kremlin on the adoption of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as part of the Russian federation.

It was uneasily in other regions of Ukraine as well. Thus, at the beginning of March, destabilizing actions coordinated by Russia began in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, which it dubbed the «Russian Spring» In particular, mass protests with attempts to seize administrative buildings and buildings of law enforcement agencies took place in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa and other regions of the specified regions.

The situation has especially worsened in the territory of Donetsk region and Luhansk region. Therefore, in view of the escalation of the conflict, on April 14, O. Turchynov supported the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to start the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). About 1,500 military personnel and 170 units of various equipment were initially involved in military operations [15, c.5]. But in fact, the fighting capacity of the Ukrainian armed forces was not high, because the years of contempt of the state leadership for the army and its support during the period of independence were evident.

On May 11, 2014, after another illegal referendum, the separatists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions announced their independence from Ukraine and asked the Russian federation to accept them. Meanwhile, fierce battles for the restoration of the territory of the state continued. And at the beginning of July, during the implementation of anti-terrorist operation, the Ukrainian army, which at that time reached the mark of 40 thousand, managed to launch an offensive in the East and free most of the territory captured by terrorist groups, namely, the cities of Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Artemivsk, Druzhkivka. At the end of August 2014, the fate of the occupied territories seemed already decided, but the final liberation was prevented by the invasion of the regular troops of the Russian federation on August 24, who, together with the military groups of the unrecognized LPR and DPR, launched an offensive that ended with the «Ilovai Cauldron» and the threat of complete defeat for the Ukrainian army. The result of these events was the signing of the protocol on the cessation of hostilities on September 5, 2014 in Minsk. The document was signed by the newly elected fifth President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. On September 19 of the same year, the Memorandum on the Implementation of the Protocol, better known as Minsk-1, was concluded. According to its conditions, the Ukrainian side agreed to grant the territories under the control of the separatists the status of autonomy and to create a 30-kilometer demarcation zone [22] and cease fire.

As it turned out, only the Ukrainian side stopped firing. Therefore, hostilities continued again. Thus, starting from September 2014 until January 23, 2015, the defense of the Donetsk airport continued. Also during this period, a new offensive by the Russian army and terrorist groups of pseudo-republics began, which ended with the Debaltsev cauldron and new agreements on a cease-fire and de-escalation of the military conflict, known as Minsk-2, signed on February 12, 2015.

Characterizing Minsk-2, the researchers note that the document became not only a certain way of freezing the conflict, but also later turned into a catastrophe for Ukraine [32]. Since Ukraine had to fulfill the terms of the document for the next seven years, while the Russian aggressor used the time for active preparation aimed at conducting a new offensive. The culmination of this period was February 21, 2022, when Vladimir Putin officially recognized the DPR and the LPR, completely nullifying the effect of the Minsk agreements.