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This Is Not the First Time Russia Has Invaded Ukraine to Overthrow a Jewish Ruler

David Sackman
5 min readFeb 26, 2022

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A demonstrator holds a poster show Russian President Vladimir Putin during a rally in protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022 in Paris. (AP Photo/Adrienne Surprenant)

As I write this, Russian troops are bombing Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. By the time you are reading this, I fear that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a Jew, will probably be dead or otherwise replaced by a puppet of Putin. This is not the first time Russians have invaded what is now the “Ukraine” to overthrow a Jewish ruler. If we do not learn from this history, we will be doomed to repeat it.

What is now (for the moment) Ukraine, along with what is now Crimea, and Khazakstan, was once the Kaganate of Khazaria. For several centuries, the ruler and many of the people of Khazaria were Jews, although all religions were tolerated and welcomed. Then the Tenth-century version of Putin, the Rus’ian Grand Duke Sviatoslav, seized the Khazar capital, scattering the Khazars and ending the Jewish Kaganate of Khazaria.

The Khazars began as a mix of Huns (the bad guys in the cartoon Mulan) and the Turkic Akatzirs. After joining Atilla in the sacking of Rome, the Khazars established their own kingdom of Khazaria in about 630 C.E. (Note that all dates here are approximate, and there is considerable debate about them). They were ruled by a figurehead “Kagan” (if you know anyone by that name, they may very well be descendants of this royal line) and a military and secular “Bek.” At one…

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David Sackman
David Sackman

Written by David Sackman

Wherever I go, I am where I came from. Always a stranger in a strange land; yet always home. I claim no land, but take responsibility for all land.

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