Revising history

Re: “Simplistic view on Ukraine,” by Boris Radyo, Letters, Jan. 25. While Boris Radyo can be commended for condemning Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Vladimir Putin, his revisionist version of history leaves unanswered questions.

Radyo denigrates the Russian and Ukrainian peoples’ shared history as “200 years of Russian colonization and exploitation of Ukraine.” Is he unaware that early Russia was largely populated by Ukrainian people moving north from Kievan Rus, the centre of Slavic civilization for nearly 400 years, beginning in the late 800s?

Radyo says the Holodomor was caused by “Ukrainian nationalism’s threat” to Russian domination. Is he unaware the Soviet Union then was collectivizing agriculture (with disastrous results) and was collecting grain in excessive amounts to exchange for industrial machinery?

Is he unaware the regions most heavily affected by the Holodomor were in eastern Ukraine, which contained the greatest concentration of Russian speakers and in which Ukrainian nationalism was non-existent?

Finally, is he unaware Josef Stalin was Georgian, not Russian, and the purge he launched four years after the Holodomor disproportionately affected Russians?