Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, pundits and politicians in the West have uncritically made bizarre claims that we are witnessing Vladimir Putin’s master plan to “revive the Soviet empire†or re-establish the pre-Soviet Russian empire. At the same time, in other corners of political discourse occupied by the left, it can seem like “empire†is a term that can only be used when referring to Western powers, particularly the US. What do we mean when we talk about “empire†and “imperialism†in the 21st century, and can these terms help us make sense of the war in Ukraine, why it’s happening, and where this is all headed? TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Professors Ronald Grigor Suny and Valerie A. Kivelson about their extensive research into the history of Russia’s past empires and about what that history can (and can’t) tell us about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Ronald Grigor Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including: “They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Elseâ€: A History of the Armenian Genocide; Red Flag Unfurled: Historians, the Russian Revolution, and the Soviet Experiment; and Stalin: Passage to Revolution. Valerie A. Kivelson is the Thomas N. Tentler Collegiate Professor and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History at the University of Michigan. She is the author and editor of numerous books, including: Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in Seventeenth-Century Russia; Picturing Russia: Explorations in Visual Culture; and Desperate Magic: The Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Together, Suny and Kivelson are the coauthors of Russia’s Empires, which was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press.

Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Read the transcript of this interview:
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** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
So, a year on and you still think Poohtin does not want anymore than the Donbas? Lol, he invaded a number of countries before Ukraine and still controls them.
The fact that Russian state media, controlled by Poohtin have openly said almost daily now, they want to see a new empire at least as far as taking Germany and all countries on the way to Germany, destroying the UK, US amongst many things!
So this video title is obviously wrong! And the video description now looks very silly!
If Poohtin is allowed to create an empire, he will do it. But he will not be allowed any more land west of Russia!
Russia will fail.by 2023
Lol
I made it as far as about 10 minutes but when I heard the line "Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine" I shut it down.
Shame on you! You are a pair of Conflationists! (Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, opinions, etc., into one, often in error.)
Stalin killed all the smart Russians. 😥
Putin really needs to send the members of his "Internet Research Agency" to the front lines, because they're not doing any good here, patting each other on the back and making their fake comments. Nobody believes the BS they're spewing out.
Ukraine, described as "independent and sovereign" is problematic, given the 2014 coup; NATO and the EU. The elephant in the room has to be US Imperialism. 20years of regime change wars, sanctions and National Endowment for Democracy activities.
1ST, THX FOR THE PRESENTATION 😘
🙆ðŸ»â€â™€ï¸ GAH DAMN IT, IS EVERY ROTTEN OCCURENCE UNDER THE SUN & ON THIS PLANET PUTIN'S FAULTâ“
🧠AGREE TO DISAGREE, I'M NO PROFESSOR IN FACT I DROPPED OUT IN THE 9TH BUT I KNOW THIS, IF PUTIN IS SUCH A MONSTER, HE WOULD'VE TAKEN OUT THAT STEEL PLANT A LONG TIME AGO BUT FOR THE CIVILIANS WHO ARE IN THERE WITH NAZIS TRASH….NOW,
👉🼠TOO MANY CONFLICTING REPORTS & THE ONE FOR ME IS ABT BUCHA…
👉🼠IT BOTHERS ME IS THAT THERE ISN'T PROOF POSITIVE THAT RUSSIAN FORCES KILLED THOSE PPL IN BUCHA~
👉🼠"RF" GAVE CIVILIANS WHITE STRIPS OF CLOTH TO USE AS AN ARM BAND INDICATING THEY WEREN'T SOLDIERS & GAVE THE PPL DK. GREEN BOXES OF RATIONS W/A WHITE STAR LOGO…
MAYOR OF BUCHA SPOKE AROUND 4/2 & DIDN'T MENTION FINDING DEAD BODIES~
👉🼠AFTER SOME TIME, THE MEDIA REPORTED THAT PPL WERE FOUND DEAD W/ THEIR HANDS BOUND W/ THE SAME CLOTHS, THE BOXES NEAR THEIR BODIES & THEY'VE BEEN SHOT…
MANY KNEW RF WERE THERE & THEY SAW WHEN THEY LEFT & I DIDN'T HEAR ANY REPORTS OF PPL SEEING THEM RETURN ~
🕵ðŸ»â€â™€ï¸ A U.N. INSPECTOR VIEWING PHOTOS SAID THE CONDITION OF THE DECEASED DON'T FIT W/ THE TIMELINE, "BODIES LOOK FRESH", APOLOGIES FOR NOT HAVE HIS NAME, I JUST SCAN & MOVE ON~
👉🼠I HEARD PUTIN SAY THAT HE WANTS THE UKRAINE NATION TO BE FREE FROM NATO INFLUENCE & REMAIN INDEPENDENT & NEUTRAL BC OF HIS CONCERN OF NATO'S INTENTION TO INSTALL MISSILE BASES NEAR RUSSIAN BORDERS…
HE MADE A COMPARISON TO THE STATES, WHAT IF MEXICO & CANADA HAD INSTALLED MISSILE BASES NEAR U.S. BORDERS, IF THEY'D BE OK WITH THATâ“
🤔 LASTLY, AH, SOUNDS LIKE YOUR GUESTS ARE BIASED & PSYCHED OUT BY THE SHEEP HERDERS OF CORPORATE MEDIA & IT'S SAD, TO BE SO SMART ABT HISTORY BUT TO NEGATIVELY JUDGE ANOTHER WHOM THEY'VE NEVER MET, PUTIN OR NO, YET REPEATING THE SAME OLD & BORING PARROT TALK IS AN INSULT TO THEM~
👹 THIS IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR THAT'S DELIBERATELY DIRECTED TO ALL PPL IN A COMA, OF SORTS, BC 'THEY' KNOW WE'RE GULLIBLE, RESEARCH IS BORING & IT'S WORKING FINE, WELL TUNED~
🤷ðŸ½â€â™€ï¸PEOPLE, I JUST WANT THE TRUTH BUT AS IT'S SAID, "TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY OF WAR"~
2 CENTS IN BERKELEY ðŸ¾ðŸ’œðŸ¾ðŸ™‹ðŸ½â€â™€ï¸
TELL SLEEPY JOE CROW, NO MORE WARâ—
Has any of these intellectuals been or lived in Russia in recent years of Putin era? Do they go by their imagination or stories of the past only? Or has anyone attempted to see today's Russia closely or attempted to talk to their academics or even Putin? Until then, just sit tell us the history you know & make Putin an imaginary figure & keep making mistakes about his next moves.
Wise people say that history must be known in order NOT to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Now a little of history.
At the end of the 18th century, Nazis appeared in Germany. Nobody gave it any importance. Nobody took any action. As a result, the number of these scum increased, this infection struck an entire state, which went to war against the whole world.
The price that the whole world paid for ignoring the birth of fascism and Nazism, for inaction at the initial stages of the development of fascism and Nazism, were numerous victims, a lot of broken lives, undermined world economy and so on.
So, in order not to repeat the mistake of the past, Russia launched this special operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.
There're Nazis, fascists, Bandera in Ukraine. And it's a fact.
And there're national battalions such as "Azov", "Tornado", "Aidar" and many others in Ukraine.
There's video evidence of how the Nazis, Nazis, Bandera organized parades in the cities of Ukraine with the tacit permission of the government of the country and the Ukrainians.
They're even allowed to run for president as candidates.
In Ukraine, streets were named after Bandera and Shukhevych. It's like in Germany they would name a street after Hitler.
In honor of lousy scums, such as Bandera, Shukhevych, they even issued stamps.
Portraits of Hitler hang in Ukrainian schools!
A few more proofs can be given, but I'm sure that's enough, so I won't waste time.
Want to know the truth when watch these videos:
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/ukrainian-forces-caught-on-video-shooting-dead-wounded-russian-soldier/
https://usacrime.com/2022/03/28/ukraine-investigating-video-soldiers-shooting-russian-pows/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Uf7aooxvE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEKQsnRGv7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RVn_bslSKQ
https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oifqp1bJp8Y
Very pleased to read the comments of people who seem more honest than your guess.
When your guests said “unprovoked attack†I knew listening to this discussion was a waste of time. What the hell happened to the real news?
Nooo don’t say that, it is coming back
Unrprovoked war = WAR PROVOKED BY EVIL NATO
In a single paragraph on page 389 of Russia's Empire's, "historians" Suny and Kivelson present an ahistorical, propagandist account of the 2014 Maidan coup d'etat. And now it's impressive what they can’t tell us about NATO’s war in Ukraine.
9:30 woah!……."unprovoked attack!" in the face of overwhelming evidence, i think someone is pushing the boundaries of what can be called truthful!
This is European war.
We are 10,000 km from Ukraine. This is a war between America and Europe. Russia is a big part of Europe. We pity the Ukrainians especially the civilians but this is your war .
Do you honestly believe Russia wants to invade Europe. Russia has over 1,700 sq km land which is still underpopulated. If you look at your history wars broke out because Europe countries wanted to invade Russia not the other way round.
If Europeans encouraged by America still wanted to stir up Russia for a fight let them do it. But don't get us involved. Sanction is a act of war. We have our freedom to join or not to join.
Europeans' best choice is kick out the American and have peace with Russian. This is your neighbors. This is your continent. You cannot keep fighting forever , generations by generations. Do you consider Europe civilized?
Russia is ENDING the 8 year slaughter in the Donbas by Ukrainian neoNazi Azov battalion.
The Russia actions ARE NOT unprovoked! U.S/ NATO/ the US puppet leader of Ukraine Insisted upon pushing NATO nuclear weapons on the Russia border
I don't trust maskers, they look like FOOLS.
Putin does not celebrate a happy Russian history at all or a false Russian history. Nothing he said in that speech was false. He has a surprising opinion in regards to that history but it is not a false sequence of events.
He doesn’t for example deny Stalin killed his enemies, he doesn’t deny the Holodomor all together, but he denies the western propaganda of the Holodomor. And it should be noted that the first person to publish the Holodomor was Goebbels and William Hearst after they had a mutual meeting with Adolph Hitler.
The Ukraine oligarchy right now claim they built the infrastructure that the Soviet society built. And the right wing in the USA claim is Ukraine and Russia was completely impoverished before capitalism. The USA has ludicrous history of the USSR.
How do most Americans claim to know Russian history after 1917 when the popularized understanding in the USA is an outright lie.
I think there is a big issue in regards to Ukrainian national identity. It was there when Lenin was leader and Lenin instituted the right of self determination and right to succeed. This was after centuries of Tsarist rule. Of course reversed by Stalin and reinstated by Khrushchev.
The far right of Ukraine has been funded and supported by western imperialism and later the Nazi government, to chip off a territory of communism.
The far right Bandera ideology was also nurtured by the USA and Canadian and British government since 1945.
The far right Ukrainian identity was manufactured by western capitalism and by the Nazi government. And I see no reason what so ever to support it, it’s an atrocity.
Although there is a point to be made in regards to hierarchy in the USSR and Eastern Bloc states, and it was made then by citizens. That hierarchy is actually nothing compared to the United States where we have extreme inequalities.
Eastern Bloc states in general had guaranteed housing, jobs, education including college and vocational training, healthcare, daycare, and inexpensive transportation, food, gymnasiums, sports teams, vacations, pools, etc. citizenship meant you had a guaranteed middle class existence.
In an apartment in East Berlin your neighbors were plumbers, doctors, teachers, assembly line workers and janitors all in the same amazingly spacious apartments. And you could even apply for second weekend garden homes outside of the city. And there are things that the USA has never seen like equal pay rights for women.
The major complaints in DDR were lack of luxury items, censorship that often made no sense, lack of travel to the west, and Stasi snitches.
Tony Blair gave a famous speech about how he wanted to tear down all the previous social hierarchies in British society. It was the biggest gas lighting rhetoric in political history, it’s an illusion, the neoliberal period increased in equality and hierarchy.
I don’t mean at all to excuse the communist party privileges which were well know. But a little perspective is needed on the issue.
And just for the record, Karl Marx never wrote that everyone was to be equal, he said, “Each according to his ability, each according to his need.†Marx thought the concept of equality was abstract idealism.
I am not sure how intellectually honest is it to say "unprovoked attack" by Russia. I think there is some confusion between provocation and moral justification. We can debate the moral justification of any kinetic warfare. However, to say unprovoked attack is to say an unfounded irrational decision. You can never find a solution to a problem (resolution for peace) if you do not know the problem definition.
It is so sad to see Western people ignore the complete history the area referred to as Russia. The continued tribalism established is still ignored and Leadership that was above that tribalism. Sadly this continues even in our dealings with the still existing tribalism amongst the people there a complete misunderstanding along with the current leaderships misunderstanding but not as bad. Oh well this is one of the reason I became a scientist instead of a historian in the United States of money
A very VERY Western lens on this whole discussion. I would say I am disappointed but I don't expect much so 🤷ðŸ¼ðŸ¤·ðŸ¼ðŸ¤·ðŸ¼
unprovoked attack on ukraine? what are you smoking?