welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. right now, russia's war on ukraine is being waged from house to house, town to town in the eastern donbas. the strategy is simple — destroy and then occupy the ruins. but the annihilation strategy isn't restricted to the battlefield. the kremlin is seeking to erase ukraine's history, culture and sense of identity. my guest today is the ukrainian raised, internationally renowned historian serhii plokhy. what's the best response to this weaponization of history?

serhii plokhy, welcome to hardtalk. thank you for having me. you are a harvard historian. you've lived in the united states for a long time, and yet you were raised inside ukraine. so is it possible for you to bring a dispassionate historian�*s eye to what is happening in ukraine right now? or is it far too personal? that's what i am trying to do — to bring this dispassionate analysis and help understanding of what is going on from the historical perspective. but it's extremely close to home — in personal terms,

and in terms also of the kind of history that i study, and studied and wrote about. never i thought that it would be at the very centre of the major international crisis, the biggest and the most horrible war that we have in europe since the end of second world war. and you have written a highly respected book about the history of ukraine. you've also written about the fall of the soviet union. your own personal history is about the intricacy of that relationship because your parents, obviously, they lived in the soviet union. you were born into the soviet union — inside russia. but then you moved very young to ukraine and were raised in ukraine. mm. your entire personal story is about this complex set of relationships. it is. it is about russia, it's about ukraine, it's about soviet union and then what came out

of the soviet union. and the impression has been that the countries, the regions that shared a lot of common history under the soviet union, that they would move more or less in the same direction. we all believed that history came to an end in one way or another — if not the victory of the liberal democracy, then at least the end of history in which there can be unprovoked war, annexation of other territory, of other country's territory. and what we see now is that different countries, different republics in the soviet union went their own ways in terms of choosing the form of the government, in terms of choosing the political orientation, in terms of political values. and there is an attempt 30 years, more than 30 years after the fall of the soviet union, to bring them back, or at least some of the key players in the soviet union — to bring back and to

make them march under — to the same... to the same drumbeat. but isn't that, if i may say so, to a renowned historian, isn't that too simplistic a way of looking at what is happening? because they are... here's vladimir putin, the former kgb guy, the guy who never got over what he calls the catastrophe of the collapse of the soviet empire. he's a guy who simply wants to recreate a soviet—style empire. isn't that a little too simplistic? it is very simplistic if you explain all through vladimir putin only. he is a major player in all that story. we see that the key decisions are being made by him with very little consultation, even with the russian political elite that are very often caught by surprise by what is happening. but look at the approval numbers in russia. mm—hm. not just for the annexation

of the crimea back in 2014, when actually this war started, but also at the support for this war going on in ukraine. and then you realise that it's much more, much more serious, and much more dangerous than about the story of one person and grudges of one individual, whoever he is. and doesn't that bring us to the power of a form of russian nationalism, a notion of what russia is that predates the soviet union? in fact, one can trace it back four centuries, and vladimir putin himself doesn't hesitate to reference peter the great. and we look at a whole bunch of russian thinkers, writers and poets through the centuries who had this idea of the great russia, which would dominate its neighbours. you're absolutely right. there is... there is a long, long history and story of this really...confusion and collusion and overlap

of the russian national identity and imperial identity. i'm sorry to interrupt. sure. but ijust want to extend this thought as to what putin is tapping into, because, as you say, it's much bigger than putin. mm—hm. when he wrote that essay, i believe it was more than a year ago in... july. july last year. yes, quite. ..he talked about the historical unity of russians and ukrainians. "russians and ukrainians are one people, a single whole." he suggested, and that there was no such thing as a separate ukrainian nation. are there, in your historian�*s view, any grains of truth in that? one thing that you see here and what you hear is really replicating the russian imperial view of the existence

of the big russian nation. yep. that was part of the thinking of the russian imperial elite from the mid 19th century until the revolution of 1917. and then it was replaced with different policies introduced by bolsheviks that putin doesn't really like. russians and ukrainians really belong to this group of east slavs, together with belarusians in particular. and the linguistic barrier, for example, between russian and ukrainian is not huge. again, russians normally would not understand, ukrainians would need some effort. ukrainians understand russians, but because of the dominance of the russian culture for so long, for a long period of time over ukraine. so there is... there is a sort of commonality that is there. and that's why, at least

in my opinion, this war — or this all—out war — came as a major surprise, especially emotionally to many ukrainians, because the assumption was that, "0k, we are not the same people, "but we are pretty close." "and they would never do this to us." exactly. that's where the part of the surprise and disbelief comes from. so what i want to explore with you then is, is how one can describe the separateness of ukraine. you've already referenced the language, and clearly that is a big part of it, but it must go beyond language. we, not so long ago, in that very chair, we had a conversation with andrey kurkov, a very famous novelist who's lived in ukraine, but, of course, has roots in russia as well. and he said that there is, in his view, a fundamental mind—set difference between ukrainians and russians, and that fundamentally, there is a more

individualistic notion of how to live life in ukraine, a more european sensibility. now, those are generalisations, but as an historian, do you think you can back them up? yes. first of all, i agree with what andrey kurkov said here. and there is a historical explanation of what we see, what the differences are about, and differences are visible. they are not about language, because the war from the ukrainian side is... is fought in both languages. and you can see that from the footage that is coming from there. mm. and i think it's true to say zelensky is actually more comfortable in russian in ukrainian. it is true. his ukrainian significantly improved. i want to really congratulate him on that. but, yes, he is... he is a russian speaker or bilingual — like most people in ukraine.

again, the mastery of language can differ. so what you see is that the war, especially in 2014, started with the idea of the protection of ethnic russians and russian speakers. mm. and now it's the russian—speaking areas of ukraine that have been completely destroyed and obliterated — like mariupol and others. so if ukrainians are not there specifically united around language, what they are united around? mm. and the answer is quite obvious — it's democratic institutions. it's the european choice that they are trying to protect. where else in the world would you see people risking their lives and even dying under the eu banner — like was the case certainly at maidan, with the european banner, flag being there. so in historical terms, it is about really a different trajectory of the development of different regions and different nations. so, so, that would be ukraine looking westward

to the european union, to european values. yes. but aren't there some forces in ukraine that look eastward? cultural forces like, for example, the russian orthodox church, which has many, many adherents inside ukraine. i dare say many of them are appalled right now by what they hear from patriarch kirill... yes, yes. ..and his support for putin, his blessing of the russian military machine. but, nonetheless, for centuries, in religious terms, ukrainians have looked east. ukrainians looked east, but the east was not in moscow for centuries, but east was in constantinople. that's where the christianity came from. mm—hm. and that's where the jurisdiction was. the orthodox church was under the jurisdiction of constantinople until late

17th century. and then we see the takeover of ukraine by moscow — muscovite state, then the russian empire, and switching and switching centre toward saint petersburg first and then to moscow. what you see happening now is really a major, major cracks appearing in this orthodox unity or traditional unity of the last few centuries, to a degree that the leader of the ukrainian orthodox church under the moscow patriarchate issues an appeal to putin, talking about the sin of gain. so it's about really turning this argument about brotherly peoples and brotherly nations... brother against brother, yeah. ..in a very different way. so, this war that was launched under the pretext of defending

russian culture and russian language and ethnic russians really notjust kills ethnic russians, but also destroys the whatever is left and credibility, certainly, of russian culture in ukraine. and this is really a big, major challenge for writers or poets or people or politicians, who in one way or other, oriented themselves, not so much on russia, but on the russian culture and language. i want your historian�*s eye on one other aspect of this, and it gets to the centrality of the second world war. mm—hm. in the thinking of russians and, indeed, ukrainians. yes. because it was the most disastrous, costly, life—defining event for russians and ukrainians.

and what it's led to, it seems to me, is now a preoccupation on both sides with naming the other as the enemy in terms of fascism, nazism, provoking memories, reviving the feelings of the second world war. in your view, is there any place for reference to fascism in this war today? clearly, world war ii is a reference point in many ways for the world in general, but in particularfor ukraine and russia. and i would say that there is none whatsoever. it's a pure propaganda in terms of suggestion that somehow ukraine is taken over by nazis, or de—nazification is one of the main goals, alleged goals, of the war there. it's a pure nonsense and pure propaganda. in terms of what is happening today in russia, there are many numerous definitions,

definitions of what fascism is and nazism is, what the categories are here and there, and some of my colleagues make a quite, quite strong intellectual case for elements of fascism in russia. mm. i would draw parallels between the history of the start of world war ii with the thing called anschluss — an attempt to build a greater, greater germany, collect the german—speaking lands and territories under control of berlin and what had started in 2014 with the annexation of the crimea, which was the parallels with anschluss were drawn even by some russian historians. very brave, brave historians, i would say. so i see the most striking parallels there in this attempt and this war about building greater russia. there's one other key aspect of what's unfolding there that you take a particular interest in, and that is the fact that

ukraine is a country that committed itself to nuclear power. actually, it was a nuclear—armed nation right after the collapse of the soviet union. yes. but it chose to give up its nuclear arsenal for security guarantees, ironically, one of the guarantors being russia. yes. but leaving that aside, it still has, i believe, at least 14 nuclear power plants on its territory. you have just written a book, atoms and ashes — all about your view that nuclear power is not a long—term safe option for our planet. does what we've seen happen in this war feed into your theory about the dangers of nuclear power? it does. and in the most unexpected way, because the accidents that i describe in this book and i take six — they're the largest, the biggest, including the incident at chernobyl and including fukushima and three mile

island, windscale fire here — here in england. each time when we think that we are fully in control of the nuclear power and we had foreseen all possible bad scenarios, it hits us from the most unexpected side. like with fukushima, it was the earthquake and tsunami and a new earthquake and tsunami happened in terms of our relations with nuclear power in the february and march of this year, when the war, for the first time in history, was brought to the territory, to the sites, nuclear sites, in chernobyl, the takeover of chernobyl by the army of the russian federation, and then shelling of the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power station in europe. this is a truly unprecedented case.

none of the 440 reactors that exist today in the world, maybe plus/minus one, none of them were designed with an eye on withstanding a possibility of warfare on the territory of the nuclear power plant. and, yet, the russian forces have pulled back from chernobyl. and, ironically, it seems the rest of the world is looking in at what's happening in this ukraine war and is concluding that because of the clear dangers of dependency on russia for fossil fuels right now, there's an even stronger argument for pushing on with more nuclear power plants. they're doing it in france. they're going to do it in the uk. they're doing it in china. they're doing it injapan. that actually, ironically,

seems to be the lesson being drawn from this war. one thing that this war shows is that nuclear power continues to be a very risky undertaking, and the risks come from the areas and from the place that for us, are difficult, difficult to foresee or difficult to imagine. and when we make our decisions about the saving the climate, or stopping the climate change... which of course, is notjust about energy independence and energy security, this argument for nuclear, it's also an argument which says, "here is a long—term sustainable, reliable "source of energy," which is pretty much once you've built the plants carbon—free. let's talk about reliability of that. you get chernobyl and you get the development of the nuclear industry arrested for the next 20 years. you get fukushima, you get the germans in particular running in panic away from nuclear and the development of the nuclear

industry being almost arrested for the same amount of time. god forbid something happens and the chances that the nuclear accidents would happen again, you will have another 20—year pause with the development of nuclear energy. so even if you don't think about the impact that it has on the environment, the radiation, the political risks associated with counting on nuclear as a solution are enormous. but, again, my overall argument is notjust, "let's do what the germans did and abandon nuclear power." my argument is, "let's look at the lessons. "let's try to learn the lessons "from the accidents

that were there." and if we decide to go with the nuclear power, we have to take an educated risk in that sense. right now, there are russian forces in occupied areas of ukraine who are taking down monuments to ukrainian heroes. we know that they have bombed and burned ukrainian documentary archives, including archives that pointed to some of the crimes committed by soviets in ukraine during the time of the soviet union. there is an attempt by some russians to forcibly change the curriculum in schools in areas they occupy. can history be erased and rewritten by force? it can. it happened more than once in the past. and there is even this saying about history being written by victors and... but it's much more difficult to do that in today's world. we complain a lot, or not complain about social media and the erosion in terms of some authoritative

voices, but what that also means is democratisation of the of the entire process, including the process of history, writing and memory and keeping the memory alive. so these attempts are much more difficult today than they were in the past. and i'm pretty sure that in this new world, an attempt to reintroduce the 19th century model and the 19th century way of thinking about nations, thinking about history, they are doomed. a final thought — you were asked not long ago what ambitions do you, one of the world's great historians, still have? and you responded, "to write a book about the past "that will change the future." is that something that's possible? he chuckles well, it's possible if you think about the future in a minor way, certainly your own... i'm just thinking, you've

written very important books about ukraine's history and the history of the soviet union. and without wishing to be too bleak about it, i'm not sure you've managed to change history. but i still have the hope... change the future, i should say. yeah, yeah, yeah. i still have the hope, so that that hope is alive. well, what we see now is this, as we already talked about, that one of the most horrendous wars and military conflicts in europe. and it is very important once the conflict is over, and even as it goes on, to understand what it is about. to understand what lessons we learn from it. and probably there are other ways to look at that. but i think that history offers one of the most effective ways of framing and understanding, because history brings in experience, history

brings in and tries to understand the roots. and if i'm able to contribute to this process, well, at least part of that ambition, i hope... i hope will come true. well, it's been a real pleasure having you in the hardtalk studio. serhii plokhy, thank you very much indeed. thank you. it was a pleasure. hello again. we had some warm spells of sunshine around on wednesday but also some scattered showers, particularly across northern and eastern areas. one or two heavy ones mixed in.

but in the west, a largely fine day, some lovely sunshine there in anglesey. satellite picture, at the moment, shows largely clear skies, but we do have some thicker cloud approaching from the northwest. that's going to be bringing some rain into northern ireland as we head deeper into thursday, but for the time being, the skies are clear in most areas and it's another pretty chilly night, really, underneath those clear skies with light winds for the time of year. we are looking at temperatures down to around 5—7 celsius for a number of you, which is on the cool side, certainly, forjune. now, looking at the pressure charts, pressure�*s actually raising a little bit across the uk, but then we've got this weather front — that area of cloud i showed you a moment ago — that is set to swing its way in, so cloud will increase

across northern ireland and we'll steadily see outbreaks of rain moving in here, turning quite heavy by the time we get to the afternoon. scotland, england and wales, a lovely sunny start to the morning, if somewhat cool, but those temperatures will quickly rise. bit of cloud bubbles up. that could bring a few scattered showers to scotland and northern england, but for many, it's a dry day. temperatures a bit higher — 18 in glasgow, but we're into 19—21 kind of territory for england and wales. so it is warmer. that warmer trend to the weather continues into friday, but again friday not wholly dry. there could be a few showers, this time across wales, northwest england, western scotland and northern ireland. again, pretty well spaced out, so you do have a chance of missing them. the emphasis is still on some warm spells of sunshine for most. temperatures, quite widely, reaching the high teens to low 20s. now, this weekend, the weather will stay fine across the north of the uk, so scotland, northern ireland and northern england keeping the dry weather and sunshine, but the weather starts to get more iffy in the south. on saturday, we'll start to see some thundery showers moving up from the near continent, the greatest risk of those probably across the southwest of england and south wales. there will be a few more storms coming up through saturday night, and then into sunday, the storms kind of merge

together to give some spells of heavier rain across parts of england and wales. now, this rain band could vary in position a little bit by the time we get to sunday, but nevertheless warm spells of sunshine, a few showers over the next few days, but we are going to see some heavy, thundery rain developing over the weekend.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm karishma vaswani. the headlines: the hollywood actorjohnny depp wins his multimillion—dollar do you believe that ms heard acted with actual malice? answer — yes. the hollywood actorjohnny depp wins his multimillion—dollar lawsuit against his former wife amber heard. another shooting incident in the united states — four people are dead, including the gunman at a hospital, in tulsa, oklahoma. russia accuses the united states of escalating the conflict in ukraine — after president biden promises to send advanced rocket systems to help ukrainian forces.

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