Putin's ideologue who is now stalling peace negotiations in Ukraine

MoscowAs happened in last year's Istanbul talks, in Geneva, the Ukrainian delegation has pointed to one person as being responsible for the lack of progress on the most sensitive issues in the peace negotiationsVladimir Medinsky. The head of the Russian delegation has once again displayed an inflexible stance, based on the conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are part of the same nation and that the Kremlin is prepared to fight indefinitely to rectify the historical error that, from his point of view, was Ukraine's independence. However, far from representing a radical position, the Russian negotiator embodies Vladimir Putin's ideological approach to the conflict better than anyone.

Kyiv, which in the last round of talks had celebrated that the "pseudo-historical lessons" were behind them, has received with irritation the sermons of the former Minister of Culture and current president of the Union of Writers of Russia. "We don't have time for this crap," Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview withAxiosAnd he recalled how, in May 2025, Medinsky threatened Ukrainian emissaries with further invasions if they did not yield to Moscow's demands. "We don't want war, but we are prepared to fight for one year, two, three, however long it takes. We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you prepared to fight?" he said.

Born in Ukraine to an ethnic Russian family, Medinsky failed in his attempt to become a spy and was unable to pursue a military career due to vision problems. In the early 2000s, he became obsessed with Russian history and, specifically, with refuting a certain obscurantist view of his country's past. He wrote a series of books entitledMyths of RussiaIn his book, which debunked supposed Western prejudices about Russia, he became a bestseller. This made him stand out at a time when patriotism was becoming increasingly popular. Consequently, historians have always despised him and even demanded that his doctorate be revoked because his thesis was not research but a propaganda essay. "Facts alone don't mean much; everything depends on interpretations. If you love your homeland and your people, the history you write will always be positive," Medinsky defended himself.

In 2012, Putin appointed him Minister of Culture, despite his complete lack of experience in the sector. His policies focused on nationalizing culture, and he even censored works deemed insufficiently patriotic. He was dismissed in 2020, but then his moment arrived. With the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, the Kremlin leader, plagued by hypochondria, isolated himself far from Moscow and began immersing himself in readings on Russian history. Medinsky became one of his advisors and one of the few people with access to it. His historical perspective, marginal twenty years ago, had been gaining ground since the annexation of Crimea and now stood as one of the pillars of the Kremlin's ideology.

Ideologue of the aggression in Ukraine

As a result of that confinement, Putin's article emerged.On the historical unity of Russians and UkrainiansThis document, which effectively denies Ukraine's right to statehood, served as the theoretical justification for the large-scale Russian invasion, and according to European intelligence sources, Medinsky was one of its authors. The text appears almost in its entirety in the textbooks distributed in classrooms in Russian schools and in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, Medinsky has been responsible for updating these textbooks, adding Russia's most prominent achievements in the so-called "special military operation," justifying the aggression, and defining Ukraine as an "artificial, accidental, and hostile" construct. In fact, since 2016, Medinsky has been a co-author of most of the materials used by Russian students and, therefore, one of the architects of patriotic and militaristic indoctrination.