Fresh from their conflict over gas in January, Ukraine and Russia are again in the midst of a heated battle — this time about the countries’ shared Soviet past. As Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko this week lamented that Ukraine had become “a hostage in the fight between two totalitarian regimes — fascist and communist” and called for Soviet-era symbols around the country to be torn down, his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev ordered the creation of a presidential commission “to counter attempts to harm Russian interests by falsifying history.” These latest salvoes represent an intensification of the ongoing war of words between the two countries over their closely linked histories.
