The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens is receiving criticism after claiming that Russia created Ukraine.
During a segment of her show, Owens read “mean tweets” about her. One user wrote, “We didn’t start a war with Russia. Putin didn’t even start a war; he started a genocidal colonization.”
“Ukraine is defending itself, and the rest of the world from an authoritarian regime, and all you can think about is fossil fuel profitability,” the user added.
Owens said, “Wow, ‘genocidal colonization’ is interesting. Again, going back to my point about people being stupid, you know – he’s not trying to commit a genocide of the Ukrainians. That obviously makes no sense because…there is no difference, ethnically, between Ukrainians and Russians, obviously. Ukraine wasn’t a thing until 1989.”
“Ukraine was created by the Russians. It was, you know, they speak Russian. So, it’s absolutely ridiculous. And, again, this entire episode has been exposing to you how ignorant people are about the goals of Vladimir Putin. He has goals. The goal is not to just get rid of Ukrainians. That makes entirely no sense. It would not be helpful for him,” she added.
Watch the video below:
Candace Owens: “Ukraine wasn't a thing until 1989. Ukraine was created by the Russians”https://t.co/q7oaHcNGrl pic.twitter.com/dQ0bfLUvnX
— Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) March 16, 2022
Check out some of the reactions to her claim below:
.@RealCandaceO, I'd be happy to discuss @Ukraine's history on your program if there's an opportunity. Kievan Rus was established in 882 AD. Your viewers and followers deserve to know its full history. https://t.co/c3q5kP0I4t
— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) March 16, 2022
Candace Owens, having claimed Hitler was fine until he started operating outside of Germany’s borders, now turns her historical expertise to Ukraine. https://t.co/9AKqCAcied
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) March 16, 2022
Beyond this stupid statement, which can be refuted just by spending 10 seconds on Wikipedia, notice how she rolls her eyes while saying Putin's "not trying to commit genocide on Ukrainians" https://t.co/LbHdZLiKFb
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) March 16, 2022
This is ahistorical and literally (in the truest sense of the word) a Kremlin talking point. Also, Kyiv was around long before Moscow. https://t.co/MGhBpb6Bg7
— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) March 16, 2022
This is staggeringly incorrect. https://t.co/WQKm7EYyo1
— Scott McGrew (@ScottMcGrew) March 16, 2022
We were created by the British. Does that mean the British should still control us?
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) March 16, 2022
Dear lord she is so stupid. https://t.co/SZS0Lb9LpQ
Even if you started from a baseline level of understanding of this region at or near zero, you're devoting yourself to ignorance if you can say this stuff three weeks into this conflict.
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) March 16, 2022
Ukraine did have a period where it was an independent state from 1918 to 1920. Additionally, Kyiv, Ukraine, was established long before Moscow, Russia, was. However, it later became part of the Soviet Union.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the Soviet Union “gave” Ukraine its independence “without any terms and conditions.”
However, the Encyclopedia Britannica points out, Ukraine gained its full independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union broke up.
Putin also has stated that Ukraine was “fully created by Russia.”
“Modern Ukraine was entirely and fully created by Russia, more specifically the Bolshevik, communist Russia,” he said in a speech last month. “This process began practically immediately after the 1917 revolution, and moreover Lenin and his associates did it in the sloppiest way in relation to Russia — by dividing, tearing from her pieces of her own historical territory.”
As The New York Times notes, the Soviet Union went on to “crush the nascent independent Ukrainian state. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian language was banished from schools, and its culture was permitted to exist only as a cartoonish caricature of dancing Cossacks in puffy pants.”