IF TRUTH IS the first casualty of war, history is its first battlefield. On July 12, 2021, a lengthy historical essay appeared on the official site of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin. The essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” allegedly penned by Putin himself, was one of many attempts by Russia's government to appeal to the idea of a triune nation—a purported brotherhood of the people of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Published on the Kremlin's website in both Russian and Ukrainian, the essay repeated well-worn claims that Ukrainian statehood was an unfortunate novelty: its sovereignty was wholly a product of Russia's Western foes, while most Ukrainians yearned to be closer to Russia. Appeals to the past at the hands of an empire-building dictator are always a call to action. Mere months after proclaiming this “historical unity,” Putin's regime sent tanks across Ukraine's borders in a rapid escalation of a conflict smouldering since 2014. The 2022 invasion, a logical sequel to Putin's assertion that Ukrainian independence robbed Russia of its historic territories, is a sobering reminder that revanchism begins with words and ends in blood.

Putin's essay taps into deeply held beliefs related to Russia's origins. It starts innocuously enough. “Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, are all heirs of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe,” explained Putin, painting an idealized picture of primordial but ahistorical unity:

The danger of Putin's essay lies in its tendency to combine sweeping generalizations—too vague to be considered factually incorrect—with far-reaching claims about the present. Take his use of “kinship,” for example. The essay proceeds from stating that Russians and Ukrainians have related historical roots to undermining Ukraine's sover-eignty. These claims of idealized kinship, moreover, mask a rigid hierarchy, with Russia as the elder “relative.”