Comments by "hedgehog3180" (@hedgehog3180) on "Growing Up in Putin's Russia // How I Was Brainwashed" video.

6:57 Honestly no one is a descendant of the Kyivian Rus in the same way that no one is a descendant of the Carolingian Empire. The Carolingian Empire set the stage for Western European history and what would eventually become France, Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries however that doesn't mean any current country is a direct descendent from it. The Kyivian Rus is similar for Eastern Europe, it set the stage and introduced Christianity to the region thus connecting it with the wider world and helped shape culture but no modern state has a direct line of descent from it in the same way that say Denmark clearly is the same country that Gorm the Old ruled and is clearly descended from an earlier state described by Frankish chroniclers a century before him. Most European countries have origins in this time period that are similar in nature, and none of them are necessarily direct descendants, except Denmark, Norway, and the Vatican.
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6:21 Every good lie has a kernel of truth. Like it's true that the Soviet Union probably did the most to defeat Nazi Germany, but that doesn't mean that the western allies did nothing, lend lease helped in some key areas and intelligence collaboration benefitted both sides, plus while it took a long time for the western front to open and it saw nowhere near as many soldiers as the eastern front it still helped drive the collapse of the Third Reich. The other caveat is that the Axis had two other members, Italy and Japan and the Soviet Union didn't really fight against them much. There were quite a lot of Italian troops on the eastern front and that probably helped soften up Italy for the eventual allied landing but that's anout it, and Japan was almost singlehandedly defeated by the US with some British help and a bit of Dutch help and a lot of Chinese blood. The last caveat is that the Soviet Union wasn't just Russia and Ukraine played a pretty crucial role as well, with 3 million Ukrainians serving in the Red Army and the T-34 literally being invented in Kharkiv by a Ukrainian. There's a saying that very much oversimplifies things but still sorta gets to the point; WWII was won with British time, American money and Soviet blood.
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