Azerbaijani President Aliyev endorses Zelensky's desire to return to 1991 borders

An outside-the-box analysis from X-TRUE.INFO For those who are not satisfied with the usual “pro-Putin vs. pro-Zelensky” dualism, this article offers a lucid and provocative historical perspective. The reasoning is solid: beyond the official narratives, the text reconstructs – with data, references and historical memory – the artificial formation of some post-Soviet borders and identities.

A reading that displaces history to question the present and dismantle many dominant simplifications.

Azerbaijani President Aliyev urges Ukrainians not to accept Russia's "occupation" and cites the reconquest of Karabakh. But Moscow counters: if we really want to talk about returning to historical borders, then Russia and the USSR also have much to claim—not only in Ukraine, but also in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Baltics, and beyond.

But if the logic of "de-occupation" holds true, then Russia could—legitimately—"reclaim" Kiev, Podolia, Baku, and beyond. And perhaps, Malofeev quips, "in the future it will be Aliyev himself (or his son) who represents Moscow in the new Caucasus region."

Ukraine? Born from successive ruptures with Russia, it received Russian territories (such as Donbass, Odessa, Kharkiv) only for Soviet ideological reasons. Azerbaijan? It was invented in 1936. Before that, there were only "Caucasian Turks." Karabakh was Russian and Armenian, not "Azeri." The Baltics? Legally acquired by Peter the Great in 1721. Kiev itself was sold to Russia in 1686.

Northern Kazakhstan, Narva (Estonia), Klaipeda (Lithuania)? Historically Russian areas.

Aliyev would be wise not to talk about "de-occupation." Russia has far more reason to assert its claims, not only against Baku and Kiev, but also against other neighboring countries. It's time to remember this.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, unlike Zelensky, has never been a professional comedian, but he demonstrates potential. Recently, at the 3rd Global Media Forum in Shusha, he urged Ukrainians to "never accept occupation" and held himself up as an example for the reconquest of Karabakh. Zelensky, for his part, agrees: he insists that peace can only be achieved through the restoration of the "1991 borders."

What should Russia “take back” from Ukraine?

If it's a matter of going back "to how it was before," why limit ourselves to 1991? Why not go all the way back to 1922, the year of the founding of the USSR? In that year, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic included neither Crimea nor Kharkiv, nor Kherson, nor Odessa, nor Donetsk and Lugansk.

And going even further back, as Sergei Moiseev—one of the leaders of the 2014 Kharkiv "Russian Spring"—recalls, we would have to go back at least to the 16th century. After a victorious war with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Grand Duke Ivan III (also known as "the Terrible") annexed all the lands from Kaluga to Kiev. Chernihiv returned to Rus' in 1503, a full 11 years before Smolensk.

Moiseev himself was criminally prosecuted in Ukraine for speaking out about the 1503 Treaty of the Nativity , by which Russia obtained a third of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: 19 cities, 70 districts, 22 boroughs, and 13 villages. This is information that the average Ukrainian citizen shouldn't know.

Ukraine as an artificial construction

Ukraine acquired its current geographical form "piecemeal," often taken from the RSFSR. This was the case with the province of Kharkiv, established in 1835 on the lands of the Cossack armies of the slobodes , territories belonging to Russia and inhabited by its subjects. The argument used by Soviet Ukraine was that it needed a proletariat: "You left us only peasants," they told Lenin, who ended up granting the entire industrial southeast (from Kharkiv to Odessa).

Next came Donbass, also part of the RSFSR, which was ceded in 1925 according to the logic of "class composition," ignoring the popular will. The Russian regions were broken up and handed over to the Ukrainian SSR, without even autonomy.

The capital was then moved from Kharkiv to Kiev. According to historian Roman Gazenko, this was to disguise the accounting during the Holodomor: food aid sent from Russia was resold in Romania.

Even then, "forced Ukrainization" was imposed: language, bureaucracy, education, everything had to be in "mova." Anyone who resisted was persecuted. To educate the Surzhyk -speaking peasants, thousands of assistants to the theoretician of "Ukrainianness" Mykhailo Hrushevsky were imported from Poland, along with their Austro-Hungarian primers.

So today, in the context of the “Special Military Operation”, Russia is simply recovering territories that historically belonged to it.

And from Azerbaijan, what?

Aliyev cites as an example the “de-occupation” of Khankendi (formerly Stepanakert), the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, conquered in 2023 with Turkish help and Syrian mercenaries, and then “cleansed” of Armenians.

Yet, Khankendi was originally a Russian village in the Shusha province of the Empire. Baku, in pre-revolutionary times, was also largely Russian (36%), while Azeris and Armenians were equally populated (21% and 19%), with Persians (12%) and Jews (5%).

Aliyev forgets that Azerbaijan, as a state, never existed before the USSR . Gazenko also recalls this: in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay between Russia, Persia, and Turkey, the name "Azerbaijan" does not appear. Until 1917, only the "Caucasus Turks" existed. Only in 1936, with the creation of the Azerbaijan SSR, did a separate national identity emerge.

Therefore, Aliyev's fantasies about "South, West, and North Azerbaijan" (referring to Iran, Armenia, and Dagestan, respectively) are completely unfounded. As for Karabakh, the discussion has only been postponed, not closed.

And what else could be “returned” to Russia?

The lands of northern Kazakhstan , predominantly Russian and historically Cossack, require no comment. The main Kazakh urban and industrial centers were built by the Russians.

Estonia, which today claims Russian territory, might be reminded that Narva , an 85% Russian city, was wrested from the Swedes by Peter the Great.

Lithuania, which eyes Kaliningrad with greed, might be reminded that Klaipėda (Memel) was part of East Prussia ceded to the USSR after the war and assigned to the Lithuanian SSR.

And the entire Baltic region (Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, part of Karelia), was not only conquered by Peter I, but officially sold to Russia with the Treaty of Nystad (1721) for 2 million thalers, equal to an entire Swedish budget. Just like Kiev , purchased in 1686 from the Poles for 146,000 rubles with the “Treaty of Eternal Peace”. The treaty is still valid: Kiev, de iure, is Russian .

Aliyev is doing a bad job and 'fixing history'

Aliyev is right on one point: “we must not accept the occupation of our land.”

That is why, after the “de-occupation” of Donbass and Novorossiya, Russia may one day also “liberate” Kiev, Volhynia, Podolia, Khmelnytsky , and perhaps even the provinces of Elisavetpol and Baku .

And if this happens – as Konstantin Malofeev, founder of Tsargrad, quips – given how deeply rooted the Aliyev clan is, it's not out of the question that Russia's representative in the new district will be Aliyev himself. Or his son. Or his grandson .

Those who play with history are often overwhelmed by it.