Introduction: The Return of History in Russia’s Foreign Policy

The publication of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s essay ‘On the historical
unity of Russia and Ukraine’ in the summer of 2021 barely raised an eyebrow in the West. Some observers wondered why a president would undertake the effort to pen down his selective view on Russia’s common history with Ukraine, if not for the sole objective to remove all raison d’être for Ukraine. What stood out in any case, was that history obviously had started to play a major role in Russian foreign policy. Yet, few fathomed that this would be the prelude to a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and war in 2022. Since 24 February 2022, we have seen an even quicker intensification in Russian historical discourse, from the claims of ‘denazification’ of Ukraine to Putin referencing the eighteenth-century general Ushakov during a March 2022 rally in the Luzhniki stadium to mark the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.