History has many uses, and not all of them are noble. That’s very much the case as the public gets a crash course from politicians about Ukrainian history.
The Russian government, under President Vladimir Putin, has stepped up repression at home and aggression abroad in an effort to consolidate power within the country and on the world stage.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, Russia formed a bloc with Ukraine and Belarus. The region is now at the centre of escalating tensions between Russia and the west.
The European Union is attempting to portray eastern European countries as racists infringing upon the human rights of refugees. But it’s the EU itself that’s primarily to blame for the refugee crisis.
European leaders have accused Belarus of using civilians as weapons along the EU border in a ‘hybrid war’. And Russia, they say, is the mastermind behind it.
Some tension was inevitable at the June 16 US-Russia summit. But Vladimir Putin’s defiant support for Belarus’s rogue regime now pits him harder against the West.
Associate Professor of Instruction in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, Affiliate Professor at the Institute for Russian, European, and Eurasian Studies, University of South Florida