YUVAL NOAH HARARI GUARDIAN PROFESSIONAL

DonвЂ™t they have a say about who they are? Most importantly, it ignores what millions of Ukrainians think about themselves. It also violates numerous international laws and treaties that Russia has previously accepted and that have safeguarded the sovereignty and borders of independent Ukraine. To claim that Ukraine does not exist as a nation and as an independent country disregards a long list of historical facts вЂ“ for example, that during the thousand years of supposed Russian unity, Kiev and Moscow were part of the same country for only about 300 years.

YUVAL NOAH HARARI GUARDIAN PROFESSIONAL

Ukrainian citizens, outside observers and professional historians may well be outraged by this explanation, and regard it as a kind of вЂњatom-bomb lieвЂќ in the Russian arsenal of deception. For many Russian nationalists, the idea that Ukraine is a separate nation from Russia constitutes a far bigger lie than anything uttered by President Putin during his holy mission to reintegrate the Russian nation. Following the Mongols, the Poles, the Swedes, NapoleonвЂ™s Grande ArmГ©e and HitlerвЂ™s Wehrmacht, in the 1990s it was Nato, the US and the EU that attempted to destroy Russia by detaching parts of its body and forming them into вЂњfake countriesвЂќ such as Ukraine. According to Russian national myths, Russia is a sacred entity that has endured for a thousand years despite repeated attempts by vicious enemies to invade and dismember it. Russia was engaged in a just war, and if it is OK to kill for a just cause, surely it is also OK to lie? The higher cause that allegedly justified the invasion of Ukraine was the preservation of the sacred Russian nation. Russian nationalists can excuse this lie by arguing that it served a higher truth.

Yuval noah harari guardian