Trump says Ukraine has no history. But the truth lives here — not in the Kremlin’s lies, not in White House compromises.

Ukraine is real. Ukraine is ancient. Ukraine is sovereign. And Ukraine is worth defending.

Kyiv was founded around 482 AD, Moscow 1147 AD.

You don’t need a lecture in history to understand this. Just stand before St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, built in 1037 — nearly two centuries before Moscow was even founded. Or visit the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, established in 1051, a cradle of Orthodox Christianity whose bells have echoed through centuries of invasion and survival.

These are not just buildings. They are witnesses.

Christianity was adopted in Kyivan Rus in the year 988 by Prince Volodymyr the Great — at a time when Moscow didn’t even exist. It would not appear on any map until 1147, as a small wooden settlement in the forest. And yet centuries later, Muscovy began to rewrite history, claiming the Christian legacy of Kyivan Rus as its own.

Worse still, in 1686, the Moscow Patriarchate fraudulently seized control over the Kyivan Metropolia — through political pressure, bribery, and deception. This transfer was never canonical and was later condemned by scholars and, in 2019, officially invalidated by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Moscow did not inherit the Church of Rus — it stole it.

And that’s why they targeted Ukraine’s spiritual and cultural foundations. For centuries, Russia tried to erase Ukraine not just by war or law — but by culture.

Ukrainian language was banned. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Russian imperial and Soviet authorities issued numerous decrees to suppress it — from the Valuev Circular (1863), which claimed the Ukrainian language “never existed,” to the Ems Ukaz (1876), which prohibited its use in print, education, and performance. Later, under Stalin, Ukrainian-language writers and intellectuals were executed or exiled during the purges — this period is remembered as the "Executed Renaissance."

Churches were destroyed — not randomly, but systematically: hundreds of sacred and historical sites blown up or defaced, simply because they were older than Moscow and inconvenient to the empire’s version of history.

They even stole the bones of Kyiv’s princes, transferring the remains of rulers like Yaroslav the Wise to Moscow and refusing to return them — as if legacy itself could be relocated.

Ukraine had a monument to Magdeburg Law — a symbol of European civic self-rule. No city in Russia ever had it. While Ukraine looked to Europe for governance, Moscow was building autocracy.

And don’t forget: Ukraine had its own centers of learning long before Muscovy built its first university. The Ostroh Academy, founded in 1576, was the first institution of higher education in Eastern Europe — printing books, translating scriptures, fostering humanist thought. It was followed by the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, founded in 1632, a prestigious university that shaped generations of scholars, diplomats, and church leaders — not only Ukrainian, but from across Eastern Europe.

While Muscovy was still enforcing illiteracy and central control, Ukraine’s academies were teaching Latin, Greek, philosophy, and theology — cultivating free thought, multilingual scholarship, and European ideals.

And the Ukrainian language? It is one of the most melodious languages in the world, often compared to Italian in its musicality. It has deep roots in the Old East Slavic of Kyivan Rus' and has preserved ancient grammatical structures lost in Russian. The Peryn Codex, dating to the 12th century, contains early examples of Ukrainian vernacular, showing a literary tradition far older than many give credit for.

Even in modern times, Ukrainian language and literature have flourished against the odds — with poets like Taras Shevchenko, whose verse became a rallying cry for freedom, and authors like Lesya Ukrainka, who defied tuberculosis and empire to write plays and poetry that still resonate today.

Stand before the Golden Gate of Kyiv, the city’s grand entrance built in the 11th century, and try to say this land has no history. You can’t.

The lie collapses on contact with stone — and with the sound of a language that never died, only defied.