Ukraine|According to American historian Timothy Snyder, Ukraine has played an important role in shaping the wider world order several times in human history.
Ukrainian Western politicians, worried about the continuation of support, have had to make an effort to explain to the citizens why the outcome of the war is important for Europe and the world as a whole. By a well-known American historian by Timothy Snyder according to him, it can be easier to understand in the light of human history, which has been influenced by the area known today as Ukraine for millennia.
According to Snyder, the emotional talk about the current war forgets the concrete fact that it is an exceptionally fertile region, capable of feeding ten times the number of people compared to the inhabitants of the region.
“It really matters who controls that area of the Dnieper River all the way to the Black Sea. People have known that for at least 2,500 years,” Snyder said in the keynote lecture at the Lennart Meri conference in Tallinn on Friday.
According to him, for example, ancient Athens was the way it was because it brought grain from what was then known as Scythia, north of the Black Sea.
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“It really matters who controls that area of the Dnieper River all the way to the Black Sea.”
Last in the past 500 years, very different empires have been interested in the fertile black soil area, most recently the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. According to Snyder, the current war is about whether the empire, i.e. Russia, keeps its ground in Europe, which has otherwise moved to the post-colonial era.
Another issue related to the war in Ukraine is climate change. The first modern humans migrated to Europe around 40,000 years ago precisely because of climate change, according to the best information via Crimea.
“The current war in Ukraine is being waged by the world’s leading hydrocarbon oligarch [Vladimir Putin]. If such oligarchs win wars, our transition to green energy will not succeed,” Snyder reminded.
Snyder’s according to that, a large part of the population of Western countries can also feel a cultural connection to Ukraine through their mother tongue, such as French, German or English.
The Indo-European root language that was at the base of them was probably spoken in the area of present-day Ukraine, from where it spread to Europe and Asia about 5,000 years ago.
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