Video games made in the USSR (2020)

The fact that Holodomor was causing collateral damage as you call it means that it was not specifically targeted at Ukranians. The target must have been something else that might even not have to do with nationality

> I don't believe there's ANY difference between Russians and Ukrainians

Russians are slaves sent to fight a war in another country. Ukrainians are free people who want to stay free. It has been like this for hundreds of years, ever since Muscovy started expanding like a cancer.

I'll give you a spoiler - Ukraine will NEVER AGAIN be a part of the Muscovyan empire. Enjoy living with that thought.

I'm going to argue with you because I'd say culture is a very abstract and complex thing and is not, lets say, as simple as culture in a civ game.

Looking at your example.. a German can go to Austria and will understand 95% of the language spoken and probably 99% in Wien. Sometimes there are different languages within a country like in Switzerland, is Switzerland now culturally divided or one culture even though they speak four to five languages there? Also one would get regional differences of the same language like dialects, and it might even go down to the lowest common multiple like words that only you and your friends/family use.

Next: Many Ukranians do speak Russian and some Russians speak Ukranian. If you use language as the canon for culture definition then yes, Germans and Austrians share the same culture because both speak German.

I never heard that Russia's culture was Ukranianized. After the moscowians kicked the Mongols out of the region around the 14th century Moscow became the center of power. I would be happy if you could cite me some source of this.

Well, I can keep going. One possible definition of culture is "stories that we have in common". Ukraine has its own literature (in the Ukrainian language, but not only), its own music, its own religious cult (Kyivan Patriarchate, rather than Moscovian), a very different political model, different personalities, different role-models.

> If you use language as the canon for culture definition

I'm not, I was simply dispelling from the start the idea that speaking the same language means having the same culture. By that rationale we could say that USA, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Malta and India have the same culture, which would be ridiculous.

> I never heard that Russia's culture was Ukranianized... I would be happy if you could cite me some source of this.

So glad you asked. I'll provide two sources (well, one and a half) that can't be suspected to have any bias against Russia, and after that I'll let you do your own research.

One is Nikolai Trubetzkoy, who once wrote: "Таким образом, старая великорусская, московская культура при Петре умерла; та культура, которая со времен Петра живет и развивается в России, является органическим и непосредственным продолжением не московской, а киевской, украинской культуры." - http://www.hai-nyzhnyk.in.ua/doc2/1928.trubeckoi.php

The second one, I'm sure you'll recognize for yourself. "Киев - мать городов русских" - https://news.obozrevatel.com/politics/49831-putin-nazval-kie... .

> After the moscowians kicked the Mongols out of the region around the 14th century

Haha. You're oversimplifying to make it look like a rosy battle for independence, when in fact Moscow simply enhanced its power by opportunistically backstabbing its neighbours and being the main collaborators of the Mongols. As an example, Moscow was an ALLY of the mongols when putting down the Tver rebellion. That is how Moscow managed to increase its power and become the dominant force in the area; in modern terms - by being a collaborator with the occupant. Sorry, I guess they forgot to mention this in school.

Edit: perhaps this is something they teach you in school - around the time of Peter the Great, a series of reforms were introduced to Westernize Russia, and many people refused to comply because they believed it to be against the cultural and religious norms by which they and their ancestors lived. This clash led to persecutions and an exodus, with many people fleeing Russia in all directions. Descendants of those people (Old Believers, but not only) still live, to this day. So in a sense, the Old Russian culture, the authentic one, only lives in a few places around the world outside of Russia, whereas the current so-called Russian culture in fact originates from the West and Ukraine. Вот это поворот!

> I recall you saying there were "big" cultural differences

I didn't, it was someone else who made the claim, but as far as I can tell it's true. It's also true that there are great similarities, but at the end of the day the two countries are different, and have been for a long time.

An Englishman could say "I don't see big cultural differences between us and the Scots or the Irish, we're the same people", but that would be very ignorant. Just like Ukraine and Russia, simply because they share some cultural elements, doesn't mean they're the same people, the same country or have the same culture or history. In fact, the deeper you dive, the more differences you find.

But I can see that when you're not looking, it may appear that the differences are minor. I can't speak to your personal experience, but from my point of view (I'm not a citizen of Ukraine or Russia; in fact I'm a Russian ethnic), there are significant differences between the two populations, not just culturally.

> Both sources you sent are Ukranian sites...

Really? Confirmation was literally a Google search away. I put in the effort to find the sources and you couldn't confirm them?

Confirmation of source #1, from a non-Ukrainian website. For context, since you couldn't be bothered to look it up, Nikolai Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian who founded morphophonology. The passage I quoted is reproduced in this book (but I'm pretty sure you can find it in German books too, if you're curious):

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=qcE2CwAAQBAJ

Confirmation of source #2, in live video from kremlin.ru at 36:30. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603

> I got it from here: https://thecrashcourse.com/courses/russia-the-kievan-rus-and...

Hmm, sounds like an extremely lossy compression. Using this type of hand-wavy abstraction of details we can indeed conclude that not only are Russians and Ukrainians the same but also Belorussians, Latvians and Moldavians.

> It's more about to which culture you want to belong to, not so much about where you have been born or which language you speak.

Most people don't actively seek to make this choice, they simply live their lives and belong to a culture or another, so this is a bit of a red herring.

> It's the people that live today that make up a nation.

Couldn't agree more. That said, it's been 30 years since USSR collapsed, 30 years of free Ukraine. Even assuming that in USSR, Russia and Ukraine were the same country and people (reductio ad absurdum), in these last 30 years Ukraine had its own parallel history to Russia's, and are a different country with a different culture. You'd be hard-pressed to find Russians who know the name of the Ukrainian president that preceded Zelensky. Or Russians who can tell you anything about the history of Ukraine. "Same people"? I think not.

We're quickly headed to the point where there'll be fewer Ukrainians who remember living in USSR than Ukrainians who don't. As time goes on, this cultural link that was created in USSR is weakening more and more, up to the point where it will remain in some nostalgic minds of old people.

But you'll also find many old Ukrainians who are less nostalgic about USSR, and will be quick to point out that for them, USSR (well, Russia) was always the oppressor.