As a Ukrainian Canadian that is deeply connected with family, friends and the community in Ukraine I am heartbroken with the news of Russia's invasion and need to get some things off my chest. For those who are not fully aware of the history Russia's oppression of Ukraine has been going on for centuries and as a Ukrainian Canadian I feel helpless with Putin's latest acts of aggression. Anyways I think it is important to share some history with the site about Russia's evil and oppressive nature to really understand the context leading up to the latest conflict Russia has provoked.

The creation of Kyiv predates Moscow by roughly 7 centuries (the cities were founded in 482 and 1147, respectively). In defining a historic identity for the Russian empire, Russia has for several centuries now opted to trace its history back to the older city-state, Kyiv, and has constructed its entire historic identity upon that narrative. Records of the language from the dawn of Kyiv, however, are linguistically closer to Ukrainian than they are to Russian. This creates a major issue for Russia’s identity. The fact that there exist a people independent of Russia who have continually inhabited Kyiv and the lands surrounding it for over a 1,600 years and whose language has continually evolved from that which was originally spoken in Kyiv suggests that those people - the Ukrainians - have the righteous claim to those lands and that history.

Thus, for the sake of maintaining its historic narrative it has always been necessary for Russia to either appropriate or destroy all evidence of the existence of Ukrainians. As history shows, Russia has tirelessly attempted to appropriate the parts of Ukrainian history and culture that they either wanted for themselves or that were too difficult to destroy. There has been centuries-long struggle and identity of Ukrainians to be free and to live as free people on their own land to escape the tyranny of Russia.

Although Ukraine has existed as a sovereign state since 1991, the truth is that Russia has never really accepted that. This is coming to light now more than ever, but the signs have been there throughout the past three decades, including:

- Russia’s refusal to assume responsibility for or even acknowledge the mass atrocities committed against Ukrainians in the 20th centuries (including the Holodomor genocide in which Stalin's regime starved over 7 million Ukrainians to death) despite overwhelming surviving evidence that these events took place
- The continued rampant appropriation of Ukrainian history and culture by Russia
- The heavy employment of financial and economic means by Russia to influence Ukraine’s domestic politics and public opinion since the mid-late 90s when it started becoming evident that Russia would not manage to reabsorb a sovereign Ukraine that was now charting its own course
-The immense decades-long campaigning activities of the Russian sponsored “Party of Regions” which was used as a tool to freely sew Russia-oriented propaganda throughout Ukraine
- The appeals to Soviet nostalgia and the “one nation” narrative that Russian propaganda has so heavily relied upon and continues to rely upon in its efforts to sway public opinion to be favourable to its cause of rejoining the former Soviet states into a union again
- The fact that Putin has claimed that the fall of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy of the 20th century
- The cases of overt Russian meddling in Ukrainian elections (which resulted twice in the election of the “Party of Regions” candidate Viktor Yanukovich and poisoning of pro-Ukrainian opposition leaders)
- Russia’s almost immediate move to “take control of” Crimea and other parts of sovereign Ukrainian territory following the ousting of Yanukovych from office
- The war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine for eight years now by virtue of its occupation of Ukrainian territory in Crimea and the occupation of Ukrainian territory in the Donbas region by de facto Russian military and administrative forces under “DPR” and “LPR” flags
- Russia’s official recognition of the “DPR” and “LPR” which it has operated and supplied over the past eight years and its refusal to engage in any sort of diplomatic relationship with Ukraine over the past several weeks - a likely signal that Russia may finally be taking the liberty to no longer acknowledge Ukraine as a sovereign state.

All this to say Putin is just the latest Russia leader to mercilessly order the torturing and killing of Ukrainians. I would ask that the shl community keep Ukraine in its prayers and if people would like to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine to please donate here (the fundraiser is being run through the Canada Ukraine Foundation): https://www.gofundme.com/f/helpukraineno...PsQRJb9-fU