“Ukrainians resist because they know who they are” Timothy Snyder for The New Yorker

American historian Timothy Snyder in his last essay for The New Yorker ponders why the war in Ukraine is a colonial war. “For centuries, the country has lived in the shadow of empire. But its past also provides the key to its present,” he writes.

Timothy Snyder tells how Putin tries to destroy Ukraine in the wake of his imperial aspirations and how Ukraine was formed as an independent state despite its colonial past.

He explains the history of Ukraine — from the founding of Kyiv to the present day and concludes that modern Ukraine is not so much anti-colonial, a rejection of a particular imperial power, as post-colonial, the creation of something new.

Read the full article on the New Yorker website.