I personally believe that Ukraine and Ukrainians have a storied and unique history and that they should absolutely explore and forge an independent identity but one that is historically true and not rooted in delusion and odium.
What I take issue with is the blatant disregard for facts and specifically, the dehumanizing and dismissive approach to Russian history. This is obvious through the posts and replies from Ukrainians who successfully underwent this zombification and their Western cheerleaders who can’t be bothered to verify if what they are parroting is in fact true. So, while I ordinarily don’t get petty, I feel like a little factual retribution is warranted.
For the record, in Old East Slavic literature, the East Slavs refer to themselves as "[muzhi] ruskie" ("Rus' men") or, rarely, "rusichi." The East Slavs are thought to have adopted this name from the Varangian elite which was first mentioned in the 830s in the Annales Bertiniani. The Annales recount that Louis the Pious's court at Ingelheim am Rhein in 839 (the same year as the first appearance of Varangians in Constantinople), was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor. The delegates included two men who called themselves "Rhos" ("Rhos vocari dicebant"). Louis inquired about their origins and learned that they were Swedes. Fearing that they were spies for their brothers the Danes, he jailed them. They were also mentioned in the 860s by Byzantine Patriarch Photius under the name "Rhos.
The earliest written mention of the word Rus' appears in the Primary Chronicle under the year 912. When describing a peace treaty signed by the Varangian Oleg of Novgorod.
During its existence, Kievan Rus' was known as "Rus' land" The term Kiyevskaya Rus is Russian and was coined in the 19th century in Russian historiography to refer to the period when the centre was in Kiev. In the 19th century it also appeared in Ukrainian as Kyivska Rus.
In English, the term was introduced in the early 20th century, when it was found in the 1913 English translation of Vasily Klyuchevsky's A History of Russia, to distinguish the early polity from successor states, which were also named Rus'.
