Historian Every Saturday: Serhiy Gromenko. Why did Russia attack Ukraine? (25.08.2024)
A lecture by historian Serhiy Gromenko (the “Historian Every Saturday” series, the August 2024 episode) on the causes of the Russian invasion. It expands the article on the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014 with new material: the significance of Crimea for Russian historical consciousness, Hetman Skoropadskyi’s thesis on the inseparability of Crimea from Ukraine, and the episode of the “cold” Russian-Ukrainian confrontation in Crimea in the early 1990s. The original subtitle track is in English; quotations are given as paraphrase/summary.
Key moments
- 35:09 Why Crimea matters to the Russian consciousness: without Crimea, Russia has no ancient history; the myth of Sevastopol
- 39:40 Hetman Skoropadskyi on Crimea: Ukraine without Crimea is 'a torso without legs'
- 24:47 The 'cold' Russian–Ukrainian war in Crimea, 1991–1994: revisiting the 1954 act, the status of Sevastopol, Meshkov