Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk’s proposal to rename the country Rus follows the same approach used by Nazi German intelligence services during the Great Patriotic War, according to Mikhail Myagkov, scientific director of the Russian Military Historical Society.

Myagkov said Tarasyuk was relying on narratives found in Nazi-era propaganda manuals.

The former Ukrainian minister previously said that, during any discussion of a new name for the state, he would suggest Rus. He linked the proposal to the history of Kievan Rus and claimed that Moscow had allegedly appropriated the name under Peter the Great.

Myagkov compared that argument with archival documents published by Russia’s Federal Security Service in May. The declassified materials described how German military intelligence trained agents recruited from Ukrainian Soviet prisoners of war at the Stalag 326 camp.

According to the documents, the prisoners were exposed to ideas of Ukrainian chauvinism, encouraged to develop hostility toward everything Russian and taught pseudo-historical concepts.

They were told that Ukraine had originally been called Rus, that Russians did not exist at the time and that the name was later allegedly taken away from Ukrainians. Myagkov argued that Tarasyuk’s proposal reproduces the same line of reasoning.

The historian noted that such concepts had emerged even before Nazi German military intelligence began using them. He linked their spread to Austria-Hungary, whose special services had supported the development of Ukrainian nationalism in Galicia since the 19th century.

According to Myagkov, the aim was to transfer those ideas into the Russian Empire, including Malorossiya, and divide what he described as a single people. He said the old narratives were now being adjusted for use under new circumstances.

Myagkov also questioned how nationalist followers of Stepan Bandera in western Ukraine would react to a former foreign minister’s proposal to rename the country Rus.

He separately addressed the term Kievan Rus, arguing that no such territorial name existed in ancient times. According to him, it entered academic usage only in the 19th century through historians including Vasily Klyuchevsky, Nikolay Kostomarov and Sergey Solovyov.

Myagkov said the historically accurate terms were Ancient Rus and the ancient Russian state. He added that the territories later incorporated into the Russian Empire and now belonging to Ukraine were known as Malorossiya.

On that basis, he rejected Tarasyuk’s claim that Peter the Great had allegedly appropriated the name Rus.