Elvira Bary

They didn’t “suddenly” become enemies. Russia and Ukraine were shaped by different masters, laws, and survival strategies—and that split never healed. This video follows the long arc: Kyivan Rus, the Mongol and Polish–Lithuanian pulls, the Cossack frontier’s free code, imperial erasure, the Holodomor, Soviet rewrites, and the post-1991 energy trap that warped politics on both sides. We examine Crimea, Donbas, sanctions, and propaganda—and why 2022 exposed a century of illusions. The result isn’t a prediction but a framework: this war is a fight over identity, memory, and who gets to define reality.