Comment by FD59A945
5 years ago
> They are separately in identity ?
That is a heavily debated question, both in Russia and Ukraine. It is possible to say the "russian" culture originated in (what is today) Ukraine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus
What we now call "Russia" was the expanding frontier of the original.
The history is very complicated indeed.
Rus (as statehood) originated in Novgorod (originally as a republic, btw). Then center was moved to Kiev. Then to Moscow. At those times there were no such entity (and ethnicity) as Ukraine at all.
Significantly later it was Cossacks republic on part of territory of modern Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaporozhian_Sich#/media/File:0... At that time it was no Ukrainian ethnicity too. Cossacks (armed settlers) were multiethnic by definition - members were ethnically Rus, Poland, Tatar, etc. from all close and far neighbors as this was area and society of refugees. That mix eventually transformed into separate ethnicity.
In Russian Empire Cossacks were playing role of armed border guard/settlers were spread across border regions of Russia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Uk...
Ukraine as an ethnicity is relatively new entity. And needless to say that Ukraine as an entity with definitive borders was a communist invention, Lenin and later Stalin have drawn its borders - Russian Empire had no division on ethnical principles.