https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/2d63dfd5-ea20-480b-a678-92ccd0dea59f In February 2026, a number of Russian diplomats initiated an interesting propaganda campaign, pretending to have 'Ukrainian origins' and claiming this gave them the right to speak on behalf of the Ukrainian nation. Of particular note was Vasily Nebenzya's speech at the UN General Assembly on 25 February, in which he first claimed that his family name was Ukrainian and that his parents were Ukrainian Cossacks, before declaring that, while he did not enjoy killing Ukrainians, Russia would continue to do so in order to "prevent them from becoming zombies" (he literally used this term). Other Russian diplomats previously used a similar argument to Nebenzya, including Vladimir Medinsky and Rodion Miroshnik. However, the foundations of this fallacy were laid by Putin's 2021 article, 'On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians', in which he claimed that, due to a shared historical, cultural, and genetic heritage, the populations of Ukraine and Belarus are, in essence, the property of the Russian state. This is because the crux of the argument is not about a shared heritage, but rather about the political control of the Ukrainian state today. Russian propaganda also frequently uses the language argument to justify Moscow's rule over Ukraine and, more generally, to claim that all Russian-speaking people are Moscow's property. The fundamental issue with this argument becomes obvious when you try to apply it to English-speaking people — justifying British control of the United States today based on a shared language sounds ridiculous, yet the same argument is all too often accepted when applied to Russian-speaking people in Eastern Europe. The core difference between Russians and Ukrainians, Poles, and other European Slavic nations is cultural: Muscovite Russians live in a collective society in which the concept of individual rights and freedom does not exist, and the personal authority of their leader is considered sacred and unquestionable. In contrast, all other Slavic nations highly value individual freedom. Wed, 13 May 2026 19:14:01 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-512x512.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/2d63dfd5-ea20-480b-a678-92ccd0dea59f All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.