Ukraine: A Battle for History

“Vladimir versus Volodymyr” or: the ancient battle between Russian and Ukrainian historical narratives, in which a medieval prince serves as justification for Putin’s war of aggression. The documentary goes in search of key moments in Ukrainian historiography and reveals how one of the bloodiest wars in Europe since 1945 came about. It traces the long struggle of Ukrainians against a Russian oppressive culture and deciphers how their struggle for freedom and independence is above all a battle for their own history that has been waged for generations. A story of daring Vikings, of the flourishing Middle Ages as a bridge between Europe and Asia, of Polish foreign rule, of knightly Cossacks, and of a ambitious Russian tsarina, Catherine the Great, who subjugated the south of today’s Ukraine and thus became the brutal pioneer of events in the 20th century, where Millions of people have died, been murdered or deported as a result of wars, revolutions, pogroms and starvation.