Oleksa Drachewych, Assistant Professor in History at Western University, discusses the echoes of history in Russia's invasion of Ukraine: implications of the Bolshevik revolution and its aftermath, the use of narrative and symbols from World War II, and the brutal echoes of history in the way in which Russia has been carrying out the current invasion of Ukraine.

The current Russian regime "by conflating the Soviet experience [in World War II] to being Russian - they are essentially removing the Ukrainian experience from the broader narrative."

"The Russian rhetoric that tends to dehumanise Ukrainians very much mimics a lot of the way that the Soviet Union aimed to dehumanise the Germans, Romanians and others... during the Second World War... and that... dehumanisation then turned into violence and anger against civilians".

Oleksa Drachewych on Calls for peace in Ukraine a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion are unrealistic

Oleksa Drachewych on How Russia’s fixation on the Second World War helps explain its Ukraine invasion

Oleksa Drachewych on Putin's War on Ukraine and on History

Oleksa Drachewych on twitter: @ODrachewych

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer