Vladimir Putin indirectly justified Russia’s war of aggression once morest Ukraine with a more than idiosyncratic interpretation of history: Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725) did not conquer the area around today’s metropolis of Saint Petersburg from Sweden in the Great Northern War, but “won it back”. In fact, the city was founded in 1703 on swampy land near the sea to enforce Russia’s claim for access to the Baltic Sea. Historically, the Baltic States have never been Slavic, which is why its comparison with the “repatriation” of Ukraine seems questionable in several ways.
