A flag with a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin waves over the Moscow crowd during the Vesna (Spring) festival in March commemorating the Crimean annexation. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)Vladimir Putin’s decade-long media campaign turned Russians against Ukrainians and Ukraine itself before he annexed Crimea in 2014.
In my book Putin’s War Against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime, I explore how Putin successfully fanned the flames of ethnic Russian nationalism, turning Russians against both the Ukrainian state and people.
Putin’s repeated claim that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” left no room for a Ukrainian identity other than that of “little Russians” …read more
Source: The Conversation