Comments by "Arty" (@arty5876) on "Why the Russia vs Ukraine War Happened - Simplified" video.

  1. First of all, author is right when he said that Mongol Horde came to capture Rus', and Lithuania used this to simply annex Western territories of Rus' and Kiev because they were undefended. But author simply ignored Russia, Novgorod and Moscow, Novgorod Republic was the only one that survived Mongols, avoided occupation from them by paying tax and making a dynastic marriage with Mongols, and defeated Swedish and German who came to our land just like Lithuanians and Poles. Moscow principality emerged in 13th century, and firstly it was in Horde controlled land, and Moscow was a tax collector state for Mongols and becoming rich because of that, because all money went to Moscow. Later Horde became weakened by inner conflicts and Moscow rebelled against Horde, proclaiming independence. By that moment, Poland-Lithuania occupied Western Russian lands and Kiev for 2 centuries already, and Moscow had an objective to restore the Rus', to take back Kiev, to take back all lands of Rus', so Moscow annexed all other principalities, defeated Novgorod Republic, fought a 100 year war with Tatars and defeated them, and proclaimed itself as Russia we know them now in 16th century. 16-19th centuries was the age when first nations appeared - British, German, Russian, American and etc. Before that, there was feudal era with NO nations existing. As you might see, Ukraine and Belarus are product of Polish occupation of Russian lands, because Lithuania captured Western Rus' and Kiev in 13th century, and country with capital in Moscow, Russia, managed to take it back completely only by 18th century, so there were 500 years when Kiev and lands of modern Ukraine and Belarus were under Poland-Lithuania, and new nations appeared as a result of this - Ukraine and Belarus, while Russians failed to assimilate them completely. Russia always thought of Ukraine and Belarus as part of itself, as part of Russia that was diverged from normality by hundreeds of years of foreign occupation. And basically Russia is right. With regards to Russian civil war - I know that it is a complicated topic, but author is completely wrong and author simply mixed up what happened - 11:50 - Soviet control over Ukraine was established in 1920, while German and Austrian control over Ukraine was in 1917-1918, author simply mixed up what happened. There was a democratic revolution in Russia with emperror losing power, and later there was an election in Russia, where Bolshewicks got 20%, it was a smaller result than they wanted, and they made illegal armed coup to capture power, weakening Russia as a result of it. When this was happening, Ukraine used the monent and declared autonomy, Lenin who took power recognized it, but in Ukraine, with low support of the government and low support of the national idea (Ukrainian nation back then didn't existed, only about 10% of the people on this land called themselves as Ukrainians), Germany quicky took Ukraine, German troops occupied it, and Ukraine back then didn't controlled Kherson, Zaporojie and Donbass regions, but Germans used Ukraine to ask Russia to give this lands in ownership of German controlled Ukraine and Lenin as a weak side was forced. Germans needed this fertile lands because there was a hunger in Germany that killed 100 thousand people due to British economic blockade, and this is how Russian Donbass and Kherson got into Ukraine - Germany occupied Ukraine and blackmailed Russia to give it, and Russia as a losing side of the war gave it. 11:58 But respect to author for mentioning Donbass-Krivoi Rog Republic and Odessa Republic, that were Russo-Ukrainian communist rebel states fighting against Germany and German controlled Ukraine, just like Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics were fighting for their independence since 2014, since American and European backed coup happened in Kiev and Ukraine became economically a Western controlled neo-puppet and West destroyed Ukrainian economy since 2014, making Ukraine much poorer in terms of salaries, destroying 80% of industry, owning Ukrainian agriculture, and now, in 2025 America even took Ukrainian resources and rare earth metals as a debt payment, a true puppet state. But lets return to original topic. Later Germany lost a war on the Western front and withdrew, so Poland declared independence, and author forgot to say that Poland had imperial ambitions to revive the former empire, and Poland invaded Ukraine and Belarus in 1919, invaded Baltics and declared war on Russia, but Poland failed and Russia defeated Poland, securing control over most of Ukraine and Belarus, with high support of local Ukrainian and Belarussian communists, and later, when Germany invaded Poland, in 1939 USSR liberated the last Ukrainian and Belarussian lands from Polish occupation, also defending these people on these lands from Germany for a while. Stalin's hunger took place in all fertile land in south of USSR, and most casualities were from Russia, then Ukraine and then Kazakhstan. 13:40 - yeah, maybe because Russians and Ukrainians are one people? There were no purges against Ukrainian nationals under Stalin because they were Ukrainian, for Soviet regime any national idea was a threat to existance of Soviet regime, and Stalin purged Russian nationalists with even more cruelty that Ukrainian ones. Here we can see the first emerging of Western propaganda in the video, where author said that Soviet purges against nationalist ideologies across USSR were Russifying someone. Soviet Union NEVER Russified anyone, Soviet Union was Sovetizing everyone, they made a new nation, just like former British colonies in North America made American nation, just like Spanish and Portugeze colonies in South America made Brazilian, Columbian and other nations. Soviets wanted to destroy all national identities and mix people genetically, to make a new Soviet nation. But they weren't Russifying, they were Sovietizing and they tried to destroy Russian national idea and even changed Russian language in 1920s. Alongside with purges against nationalists, Soviet regime was actually promoting Ukrainian language and culture, and under Stalin there was a famous rewriting of history and falsification about heroism of Bohdan Khmelnitsky during Cossak uprising in 17th century. After Stalin death, Soviet regime changed, and Soviets continued their policy of destroying Russian nationalism, while doubling down on promoting of nationalism of everyone else. Soviet government attepmted few times to force people to speak Ukrainian language, but it failed, and in 1954 Soviet regime gave Crimea to Ukraine. Crimea, a Russian land with 60% of Russian population and only 10% of Ukrainian population, was given from Russia to Ukraine by the Soviet regime. And during the downfall of USSR in 80s, national elites started to promote the nationalism using media resources. 17:56 - author forgot to mention about Russian movement and desires of independence from Soviet regime, of course National Elites of Communist Party wanted independence, they all magically became oligarchs after their states became independent)
    1