Russian propagandists are distributing a video on anonymous telegram channels in which the author claims that old German maps published in 1881 and 1908 contain no mention of Ukraine or Ukrainians. However, this is a distortion of facts.

Specialists from the VoxCheck project drew attention to it. They found out that the term “Ukraine” designating the territory of the modern state of Ukraine had already appeared on the maps of European cartographers at the end of the 17th century.

Ukrainian historian Yaroslav Hrytsak explains that the word “Ukraine” as a geographical name was first mentioned in the Kyiv Chronicle of the 12th century as a designation of the territory of the Pereyaslav Principality. The term had different interpretations among Ukrainian historians: Mykhailo Hrushevskyi believed that “Ukraine” meant the Middle Dnipro region, and Agatangel Krymskyi argued that this was the territory where the Cossacks later arose. The term “Ukraine” began to acquire a specific geographical meaning throughout the 16th century, and its final consolidation in cartography occurred thanks to the maps of the French engineer Guillaume de Beauplan in the mid-17th century.

Therefore, if one carefully examines the map in the propaganda video, they will notice that the territory of modern Ukraine is designated as “Malorossia” or “Little Rus”, which was a derivative of the term “Hetmanate” or Left-Bank Ukraine. This approach of Russian propagandists is aimed at discrediting Ukraine, but it has no scientific basis, since the term “Ukraine” has been known since ancient times and was used to designate certain territories.

Accordingly, the thesis of propagandists that there are no mentions of Ukraine on old maps is unfounded.