Kremlin distorting history to increase anti-Western sentiments among Russians – UK intel
The UK Ministry of Defence said this in an intelligence update posted on the social platform X, Ukrinform reports.
The intelligence says that Russia’s State Archive Agency has published a collection of documents “On the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians”. It opens with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s July 2021 article on the subject, immediately followed by his address on the situation in Ukraine given on 21 February 2022, the eve of the invasion.
The book features 242 documents ranging from the 11th century to the 20th century, which are used to justify the Kremlin’s current policy and support the claim that foreign subversion turned Ukraine into “anti-Russia”. The documents are accompanied by Putin’s interpretative comments.
In addition, last week former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote an article on the history of Russo-Polish relations. He accused Poland of conducting an aggressive revisionist “Russophobic” policy, warning this could lead to “the destruction of Polish statehood” and threatening that Russia and Belarus are able to provide an adequate military response if necessary.
“The weaponisation of history by the Russian leadership is intensifying, aimed at inculcating anti-westernism in the minds of the Russian population and intimidating its immediate western neighbours,” the analysts said.
As reported by Ukrinform, in May, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Valery Zorkin, the head of the Constitutional Court, who showed a 17th-century map on which Ukraine was not marked as a separate state.
At schools in the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk region, Russian invaders introduced additional lessons on "the history of Russia in the twenty-first century" for ninth graders.
