Historian Serhii Plokhy: "Ukrainian independence is the key to the future and European security"

Harvard historian Serhii Plokhy is the author of several reference books on the history of Ukraine: The Russo-Ukrainian War, The Return of History, At the Gates of Europe and History of Ukraine (Gallimard).

LE FIGARO. - Three years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, what is the first assessment of this war?

SERHII PLOKHY. - The Russian invasion launched three years ago defied all predictions. First, by happening. While everyone had expected it, few people considered it possible: yet it happened. The second big surprise was Ukraine 's resistance. Instead of collapsing, as almost everyone expected, both the Americans and the Russians, Ukraine resisted. It managed to hold the Russian army in check, but also to carry out victorious counter-offensives in 2022, and even last year to launch operations on Russian territory, the first army to do so since the Second World War...