ウクライナ侵攻とプーチン・ロシア大統領の「歴史的国家」像

Abstract

Not only the internationally recognized border between the Russian Federation and Ukraine but also the existence of both of them as independent and sovereign states is based on the December 1991 agreement, in which then 11 soviet republics guaranteed mutual respect of the others’ independence and territorial integrity. However, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine was launched, approximately 30 years later on February 24, 2022, the Russian president Vladimir Putin began to clearly and publicly deny the historical basis of Ukraine as sovereign country. It was the most serious consequence of his long-time domestic strategy to mobilize Russian people to support his regime by creating a sense of national identity based on people’s memory that Russia has been a great power for centuries. This paper is to review Putin’s various statements since Russian full-scale invasion started and discuss how he has been using his historical view and the issue of national identity, which Russian people had once lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as a political tool to sustain his power.