A careful look at Ukrainian history will show that Ukrainians played the same role in the Russian Empire (including its continuation - the Soviet Union) as the Greeks and South Slavs in the Ottoman Empire or the Persians in the Arab Empire - that is, as civilizers of their conquerors.
In the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire was ruled primarily by people from the Balkans, such as the South Slavs and Greeks. Most of them were kidnapped at a young age, forcibly converted to Islam and, as adults, served in the state apparatus, bureaucracy and the army. In the army, they constituted an elite corps of the Janissaries, which was formed exclusively from young men recruited (i.e. forcibly torn off) from Christian families in the Balkans. This whole system was called "devshirme" in the Ottoman Empire.
It is fair to say that it was mostly people of European origin that made the Ottoman Empire so powerful in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was thanks to their efforts and talent that the Ottoman Empire was able to exist for six whole centuries, which, from a historical point of view, was quite a long time for a Turkic state.
The peak of their influence, respectively, fell on the second half of the 16th century - that is, the peak of the power of the Ottoman Empire. The most famous representative of this era was the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmet Pasha (Sokolovich), who served under three sultans, a Serb by origin, born in an Orthodox family. At that time, the influence of the South Slavs in the Ottoman court of the 16th century was so huge and all-encompassing that Serbian was even the everyday language there.
The South Slavic and Greek children abducted by the Turks were forever separated from their families, forcibly converted to Islam and completely and irrevocably cut off from their roots. At the same time, over time, they were instilled with views and attitudes hostile to Christianity (i.e., against Europe), as a result of which they were used to kill and enslave their fellow Europeans. Their good physical data and high mental abilities were not only forever lost for those peoples from which they traced their roots, but also became a weapon against them.
Similarly, in the 8th to 10th centuries, the Persians had a huge civilizing influence on their Arab conquerors. The Arab caliphs adopted many Persian administrative practices such as coinage, the role of the vizier, and the divan. In fact, the Persians were the main administrators in the Arab Empire, just as the Greeks and South Slavs, many centuries later, would exercise state administration in the Ottoman Empire. The Iranian people also had a significant impact on Islamic culture. Their contribution can be seen in various fields, including the so-called "Arabic poetry", which was actually the lot of Iranian poets who wrote in Arabic. Islamic architecture has also been heavily influenced by Persian architecture. According to one of the caliphs:
The Persians ruled themselves for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs for a single day. We rule them for a century or two, and we cannot do even an hour without them.
The Abbasid dynasty, which replaced the Umayyads in the second half of the 8th century, was established with the support of the Persians. And later, in the 9th century, the main reason for the decline of the Arab Empire, which led to its final collapse, was the uprising of the Persians against Arab domination. As soon as the Arabs lost the Persians, they lost their power. This was followed by what later historians will call the "Islamic Golden Age", which, in fact, was the cultural and scientific achievements of the Persians after they threw off the Arab yoke, as a result of which they finally got the opportunity to fully open up and demonstrate all their abilities. Almost all the famous scientists and thinkers associated with the Islamic Golden Age were of Persian origin - for example, Biruni, Khorezmi, Farabi, Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) and others.
In the same way, in the 17th century, Ukraine was the abode for many gifted thinkers - philosophers, theologians, writers, poets, and a place of great cultural and intellectual upsurge.
However, in the second half of the 17th century, at the end of the Russo-Polish war (1654-1667), Russia conquered eastern and central Ukraine, including Kyiv. This was a very important turning point in Russian history. Unexpectedly, Russia acquired as its new subjects a large number of talented, highly cultured and refined people.
The influence of Ukrainian philosophers and thinkers on the intellectual life and politics of Russia at that time cannot be underestimated. For example, it is safe to say that what is known today as "Russian literature" originates in Ukraine. It was the Ukrainian poet and church leader Simeon Polotsky who founded the first Latin school, and then the first academy in Moscow, having moved there at the invitation of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. He was also the tutor of the royal children, among whom was the future Peter I. It was the Ukrainian Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, adviser to Peter I, and his entourage from the Kiev-Mohyla Academy that were the main ideologists of the Russian Empire and played an important role in its founding. In addition, it was the Ukrainian theologians who were the driving force behind the large-scale church reforms that took place in Russia in the middle of the 17th century. Thus, in the second half of the 17th century, the Ukrainianization of Russian cultural and spiritual life took place. Like, for example, the Persianization of the Islamic-Arab culture, which took place starting from the 9th century.
Later, during the Soviet era, Ukraine again became a center of innovation, this time in the field of science and technology. It was the most technologically advanced republic in the Soviet Union - in fact, a kind of Soviet "silicon valley". The vast majority of technological developments in the USSR were the achievements of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. Including in the military-industrial complex. The Soviet military industry, in fact, lay on the shoulders of the Ukrainians. The most advanced weapons available in the Soviet Union, both conventional and nuclear, were produced in Ukraine by Ukrainian engineers. Which, by the way, Ukraine was forced to abandon and transfer to Russia in accordance with the infamous Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Many in the West do not know or prefer to ignore the fact that, for example, ballistic missiles, with which Russia is now bombing Ukrainian cities - these are the very missiles that Ukraine transferred to Russia in accordance with this agreement. Or, for example, the Sarmat nuclear warhead that Russia now likes to rattle to scare off the West is actually a modification of the original built in Ukraine. Also, the head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite into space, then the first animals and, finally, the first man, was also a Ukrainian scientist designer, a native of Zhytomyr - Sergey Korolev (Sergiy Korolev). The list goes on. In general, it is safe to say that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. which Ukraine transferred to Russia in accordance with this agreement. Or, for example, the Sarmat nuclear warhead that Russia now likes to rattle to scare the West is actually a modification of the original built in Ukraine. Also, the head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite into space, then the first animals and, finally, the first man, was also a Ukrainian scientist designer, a native of Zhytomyr - Sergey Korolev (Sergiy Korolev). The list goes on. In general, it is safe to say that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. which Ukraine transferred to Russia in accordance with this agreement. Or, for example, the Sarmat nuclear warhead that Russia now likes to rattle to scare the West is actually a modification of the original built in Ukraine. Also, the head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite into space, then the first animals and, finally, the first man, was also a Ukrainian scientist designer, a native of Zhytomyr - Sergey Korolev (Sergiy Korolev). The list goes on. In general, it is safe to say that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. Also, the head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite into space, then the first animals and, finally, the first man, was also a Ukrainian scientist designer, a native of Zhytomyr - Sergey Korolev (Sergiy Korolev). The list goes on. In general, it is safe to say that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. Also, the head of the Soviet space project that sent the first satellite into space, then the first animals and, finally, the first man, was also a Ukrainian scientist designer, a native of Zhytomyr - Sergey Korolev (Sergiy Korolev). The list goes on. In general, it is safe to say that the Soviet Union was able to become a military superpower only thanks to the efforts of Ukrainian scientists and engineers.
Many explanations have been put forward as to why Russia invaded Ukraine and wants to control its territory - i.e., imperial/colonial expansion, creating its own sphere of influence, destroying Ukrainian national identity, and so on. But the reason for the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in general, the eternal obsession of Russians in Ukraine, lies much deeper. First of all, the Russians need Ukrainian human capital, or rather, the Ukrainian gene pool , to solve their own demographic problem.
Zbigniew Brzezinski once remarked that Russia is an empire with Ukraine, but not without Ukraine. Most interpret this rather superficially as saying that Russia needs Ukraine's territory and natural resources to spread further into Europe. All this, of course, also has a place to be, but Russians, first of all, need the Ukrainian gene pool, which determines the high IQ, creative talent and efficiency of the Ukrainian people. Everything else is secondary. It was the gene pool of Ukrainians that largely stood at the origins of the Russian Empire and contributed to its formation. Later, it was the Ukrainians who made the Soviet Union a military superpower. All this is similar to how, at one time, it was the Persians who made the Arab Empire powerful and created what is commonly called "Islamic culture" or like the Greeks with the South Slavs, in fact,
Accordingly, modern Russia desperately needs the human potential of Ukraine. As we can see, in different periods of history, it was the talent of Ukrainians that played a critical role in the emergence of a powerful state from Russia, which had to be reckoned with.
Therefore, it is in this vein that the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russian invaders and their resettlement to Russia should be understood . Just as in the past, the Ottoman Turks abducted and forcibly took away South Slavic and Greek children, instilled Islam in them, forcing them to forget their roots, and trained statesmen or Janissaries from them, who later nightmared all of Europe, the Russians seek to instill in the abducted Ukrainian children the ideology of Russian imperial chauvinism (i.e., the "Russian world"), in order to subsequently direct them against their relatives and, possibly, other Europeans.
Thus, the Western public and politicians must finally understand that the (purely hypothetical) conquest and subjugation of Ukraine by Russia, even only part of it in the form of the now occupied territories, will in the long run become a problem for all of Europe, since Russia will receive a highly capable and talented human capital, which it will then use to further threaten Europe. Everyone has already seen what skillful and zealous fighters the Ukrainians are. They are also very skilled engineers, as mentioned above. Imagine if they did not fight against the Russians, but after decades of indoctrination with the anti-Western ideology of the "Russian world", they would turn against the Europeans, like Russian "Janissaries". Imagine Ukrainian engineers again building superweapons for the Russian military-industrial complex.
In the 17th century, a passionate leap took place in the expanses of Eastern Europe, on the territory of the former Kievan Rus, during which a young and dynamic Ukrainian nation was born. However, due to a number of fatal historical circumstances, this dynamic European nation eventually had to sublimate its passionate ardor and creative impulse in favor of the Asian Muscovy, which was alien to it, and inherently hostile to European civilization. As a result, the Ukrainians, over the next 350 years, were destined to give their valuable abilities to the service of a power that acted against their interests. Just as, at one time, ethnic Greeks and southern Slavs had to act to please the hostile Ottoman Turks or Persians to please the Arabs.
But now, finally, Ukrainians, as a result of a new passionary leap, which is now observed and admired by the entire civilized world, have a unique historical chance to use their huge potential, their valuable gene pool, for their own prosperity and development, within the framework of their own national state, which is an integral part of European civilization. And as a result, build a bright future for yourself and your offspring, and not for the sake of some foreign formations.