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One People

Tagshistorical distortionimperial narrativewar justification

Also writtenhistorical unitytriune Russian nationRussians and Ukrainians are one people

EquivalentsRUодин народ

Definition

Section titled “Definition”

“One people” (Russian: odin narod) is the claim that Russians and Ukrainians — often together with Belarusians — are not distinct nations but a single people artificially divided, and that Ukraine is therefore not a real country but a fragment of historic Russia led astray by hostile outsiders. It is the foundational premise beneath the rest of Russia’s war narrative: if Ukrainians are merely confused Russians, then Ukrainian statehood is illegitimate, Ukrainian resistance is fratricide or treason, and the destruction of Ukrainian identity can be presented as a family “reunification” rather than conquest.

The narrative is the positive-sounding core that the harsher frames depend on. Denazification explains who must be removed; Russian World names the civilisation to be restored; “one people” supplies the underlying assertion that there was never a separate Ukrainian nation to begin with.

Origin and history

Section titled “Origin and history”

The idea descends from the 19th-century imperial doctrine of the “triune Russian nation,” which held that Great Russians, Little Russians (Ukrainians), and White Russians (Belarusians) were three branches of one Russian people. On this view a distinct Ukrainian nationality could only be a foreign-sponsored fiction. The Russian Empire acted on the doctrine: the Valuev Circular of 1863 banned most Ukrainian-language publications — its author asserting that “a separate Little Russian language never existed, does not, and cannot exist” — and the Ems Ukaz of 1876 prohibited Ukrainian in print, imports of Ukrainian books, and Ukrainian-language theatre.1 A state does not ban a language it believes does not exist; the suppression itself testified to a Ukrainian identity real enough to be feared.

The contemporary version was set out by Vladimir Putin in his July 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” a roughly 5,000-word text published on the Kremlin website that argued Russians and Ukrainians are one people sharing a thousand-year history, language, faith, and origin in Kyivan Rus’.2 Analysts read it as the ideological predicate for the coming invasion: the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and others treated it as a programmatic statement, and one commentator called it “one step short of a declaration of war.”3 On 21 February 2022, three days before the full-scale invasion, Putin sharpened the claim, asserting that modern Ukraine had been “entirely created” by Bolshevik, communist Russia — that Ukraine was, in effect, Lenin’s invention.4

Function in propaganda

Section titled “Function in propaganda”

The frame is used to:

  • deny that a Ukrainian nation exists, recasting a sovereign people as a regional variety of Russians and so removing the basis for an independent Ukrainian state;
  • delegitimise Ukrainian statehood as artificial, attributing the country’s borders and very existence to Soviet “mistakes” or to outside manipulation rather than to a real nation’s self-determination;
  • reframe invasion as reunification, so that annexation, occupation, and the suppression of Ukrainian language and culture appear as the healing of an unnatural division;
  • brand Ukrainian identity an “anti-Russia project,” the work of external enemies (the Collective West) and internal traitors (see Banderites), rather than an organic national consciousness;
  • extend the same logic to Belarus and the wider Russian World, supplying a template for absorbing other neighbours.

The claim is counterfactual. Kyivan Rus’ is a shared medieval inheritance of several modern nations, not the exclusive property of the Russian state, which coalesced around Moscow centuries later; selecting it as proof of Russian ownership of Ukraine is a political choice, not a historical finding. A distinct Ukrainian language, culture, and political tradition — from the Cossack Hetmanate to a modern national movement — are documented over centuries, which is precisely why the Russian Empire tried to legislate them out of existence.1 Above all, Ukrainians answered the question themselves: in the 1 December 1991 referendum, 92 percent voted for independence on an 84 percent turnout, with a majority in every single region, including Crimea and the Donbas.5 Scholars such as Serhii Plokhy document Ukraine’s long, separate historical development; the “one people” thesis is an imperial argument dressed as history.6

Key examples

Section titled “Key examples”

The 2021 essay. “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” gave the doctrine its definitive modern statement and was reportedly made required reading in the Russian armed forces — moving it from rhetoric toward operational doctrine.2

The “Lenin created Ukraine” speech (21 February 2022). In his address recognising the “independence” of the Donbas statelets, Putin declared that modern Ukraine was wholly the creation of Bolshevik Russia, framing its very existence as a reversible historical error on the eve of invasion.4

Erasure in occupied territory. The narrative is enacted, not just spoken: in occupied areas Russian authorities have imposed Russian curricula, suppressed the Ukrainian language, and deported Ukrainian children — the practical meaning of treating Ukrainians as Russians who must be “returned” (see Denazification, Passportization).

Why it matters

Section titled “Why it matters”

“One people” matters because it is the master premise that makes every other justification cohere. Denying that Ukrainians are a distinct nation converts a war of aggression into an internal affair, strips Ukrainian sovereignty of legitimacy in advance, and recasts the forced assimilation of a population as the restoration of natural unity. It is the difference between conquering a neighbour and reclaiming one’s own.

This is also why the narrative is so dangerous in law and in practice. Genocide scholars note that the denial of a group’s right to exist as a group is a component of genocidal intent, and the policies that follow from “one people” — banning the language, rewriting the schools, deporting the children — are aimed at dissolving Ukrainian identity itself. The claim that there is no Ukrainian nation is not a historical opinion; it is the rationale for ensuring there is none.

Naming it accurately

Section titled “Naming it accurately”

See also

Section titled “See also”

Sources

Section titled “Sources”

Mentioned in

Section titled “Mentioned in”

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. The Valuev Circular (1863) banned most Ukrainian-language publications; the Ems Ukaz (1876) prohibited Ukrainian in print, the import of Ukrainian books, and Ukrainian-language theatre — imperial measures against a language officially declared not to exist. ↩ ↩2

  2. Putin, V., “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” President of Russia (kremlin.ru), 12 July 2021. ↩ ↩2

  3. “Contextualizing Putin’s ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,’” Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2021; analysts including Anders Åslund described the essay as “one step short of a declaration of war.” ↩

  4. Address by the President of the Russian Federation, 21 February 2022 (kremlin.ru): the claim that modern Ukraine was “entirely created” by Bolshevik, communist Russia. ↩ ↩2

  5. 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum: 92.3% voted for independence on an 84% turnout, with majorities in every region, including Crimea (~54%) and the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (>80%). ↩

  6. Plokhy, S. (2015). The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine. Basic Books — on Ukraine’s distinct, centuries-long historical development. ↩